9/5/18 Report - Bigger Surf Coming. Gordon Hits Mississippi. Florence Headed Towards Bermuda. Mystery Find Identified.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Found on Beach by Alberto S.

I often say you can find anything and everything on a beach.  The items shown above were recently found by Alberto S.  Do you know what they are?   I'll tell you later.

Here is how Alberto described this find.

I am attaching a couple of images hoping you may have the time to view and comment. The image with the green capsule - I do not have a clue as to what this is for.  It's about an inch long and inside are a couple of tiny pouches with a silver looking liquid and a small black bead or something like that.  It was a surface find.

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Brian B. had the following to say about the beaches up in the Flagler area.

... I think you were smart hitting the inland over the year as the sand has been rebuilding since Jan 5 this year in Flagler when the N Easter hit along our coast. 25 million dune restoration has been underway since Feb with a mile a month getting new sand from some 50 miles away and trucked in. While it's white fine sand and does not match the existing it was DEP approved and even though it won't hold together like existing sand, it seems that DEP doesn't care just so it's a sand of their approval. Thanks

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And DB said, I read the report today and saw you haven't been up north any. Vero and north are all sanded in as well.

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Thanks for sharing Alberto, Brian and DB!

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Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall around Mississippi, and Hurricane Florence is headed towards Bermuda.

Hurricane Florence.
Source: nhc.noaa.gov

For the Treasure Coast, the one to watch is the undeveloped system behind Florence.  It is still far away.

This weekend the surf will increase.  Here is how MagicSeaWeed shows it

I don't believe we've had four to six feet all summer - at least not sustained for any length of time.  Looks like summer is about over.

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About the mystery find shown at the top of the page - here it is.

It is a dental amalgam kit containing 600 mg of mercury and 600 mg of alloy.

Here is some information added by Alberto.

There's no secret reason NIST (and partners like the Environmental Protection Agency and United Nations) have pushed scientists away from mercury. It's a neurotoxin—exposure can cause tremors, partial blindness, deafness, memory loss, and many, many other problems—and, if mercury does spill, it's very hard to clean up. But toxicologists have known these facts for ages—what took so long? Inertia, partly. People grew up using mercury thermometers, and damn it, they want to keep using them. But mercury thermometers also have real advantages over the alternatives. 

So I went looking for amalgam and found this:

Potential Risks: Dental amalgam contains elemental mercury. It releases low levels of mercury in the form of a vapor that can be inhaled and absorbed by the lungs. ... Based on this evidence, FDA considers dental amalgam fillings safe for adults and children ages 6 and above.Dec 5, 2017 

He then wondered, as you might expect, how it ended up on the beach.

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Concerning mercury, below is what Carla Phillips says in her book Six Galleons for the King of Spain.

... The galleons often carried mercury on the outbound voyages, because it was a crucial part silver refining in the New World.  Once the mercury arrived in Cadiz, special containers had to be built to protect it form dampness, and that could take considerable time.  Altogether, some 198 toneladas would be sent in 1632, both to New Spain and to Tierra Firma for transshipment to Peru.  Although Oquendo was no e too pleased with the extra trouble caused by the mercury, after several years of uncertain fleets the New World mines were desperate for it.  The fleet also carried muskets and harquebuses, gathered from all over Andalusia, for transsihpment to Peru...

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net


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