Showing posts with label Ponce de Leon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ponce de Leon. Show all posts

Thursday, February 20, 2014

2/20/14 Report - Fossil Shark Teeth From Beach, Shards Found In Shell Piles, and Bits of Florida History


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

Fossil Shark Teeth and Pot Shard Finds
by Eva S.

A few days ago I posted a note from Eva S. who has been finding fossils and shards on the beaches between Sebastian and Vero.  Here are a few of her finds.  (Many more are shown below.)

That is the kind of thing you are likely to find these days.  I'm sure the detecting snow birds, who are on the Treasure Coast in great numbers now, are disappointed with the beach detecting conditions.  Since our good detecting back in November conditions have been consistently on the poor side.

You just can't control beach conditions.  You have to adapt and make the best of it.  Another alternative is to take a little trip.

Yesterday I talked about abandoned and hidden beaches.  Some were not ideal beaches to begin with.  I'm thinking of some of those that you'll find in parks where they tried to make a nice beach on a lake, bay or stream by bringing in nice white sand and and spreading it.  That usually doesn't last long.  The weeds will come up right through the new sand and nature will reclaim the beach.  I can think of a few like that.  Beaches like that might look nice at first but they aren't used much by people because the area just beyond the dumped sand is still muddy or mucky in the shallow water.  The result being that they give up on maintaining the beach before long and it is reclaimed by nature.  You can identify those beaches by the unnatural white sand on one part of the shoreline.

I can think of one abandoned beach inside the property of a very large Florida amusement park.  At one time there was a life guard station and dock at that beach.  Now you can hardly tell there was ever a beach there.  I first detected that one when it was in full operation.  Now it is very over grown, there is no sign of the life guard station and the dock is gone.


I'm still working on uploading my video clips of how objects move on a beach.  No success yet.  I also plan to make more videos and do some experiments to illustrate the processes of beach dynamics.

A few notes on Florida history follows.

Between 1513 and 1565 at least eight Spanish expeditions were sent to Florida with the aim of establishing Spanish rule.

In 1565 Menendez massacred 130 people at Fort Caroline, a French outpost near Jacksonville.  Nine days later he led the killing of 110 more Frenchmen near St. Augsutine, inspiring the name of  Mantanzas (massacre) Inlet.

It appears that Europeans had been to Florida before Ponce de Leon.   Many believe that John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) was the first European to see Florida.

Several maps appear to show Florida years before its supposed discovery by Ponce de Leon.

They include the Juan de la Cosa Map, published in 1500.

The 1507 Waldseemuler Map that is housed in the Library of Congress and appears to show the peninsula of Florida.

And the Peter Martyr Map, which was circulating in Europe as early as 1511, two years before Ponce's supposed discovery of the area.

More than one hundred Florida missions were established by the Franciscans and the Jesuits beginning in 1566.  By 1705 they had all disappeared.

All of this is in J. D.Allman's book on Florida history that I referred to back a ways.


On the Treasure Coast the surf is increasing a little for a couple of days.  It looks like it will be up to about four feet or so.

The wind will be out of the south and southeast, so if anything, expect beach building.


Below are a number of photos of pieces that Eva has picked up along the beach.  You can look through them and see if you can help with identifying anything that might be older or interesting.  Note in the last photo, the couple of wooden handles, for example.

Here goes.









Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

Monday, February 17, 2014

2/16/14 Report - Treasure Coast Beaches, Copper Sheathing, and Did de Leon Ever Land in St. Augustine


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


One Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide
The Treasure Coast beaches haven't changed hardly at all for the past couple of weeks.

The weather is beautiful and there are a lot of snow birds on the beach.

The beach, though, still looks very much like a summer beach, as you might be able to tell from this photo.

It was mushy all the way to the water.

Another Treasure Coast beach was slightly better, but far from anything that would cause me to upgrade my beach detecting conditions rating.  The cut that I showed about a week ago was still in place, as was the sand bar in front of it.  Like I said, not much has changed.

There weren't many shells, but there were a few shells and small fossil pieces.

I mentioned a few days ago that people have been picking up shards and things like that.

Here is a piece of copper with nails found by J.K.   He wanted opinions.  What do you think?



I won't give you mine yet.  I don't want to influence you.

A few days ago I told you to go and watch how the water moves sand and things.  I made a video to illustrate some things about that but haven't yet managed to get it to load into the blog.  Hopefully I'll get that to work.  I was able to capture some good illustrations.

Even a very calm surf and small waves move things.  It is just on a smaller scale.

I'm trying to organize a good presentation on reading beaches. Until I get it done (there is a LOT to it)  I'll just throw a few more things out there from time to time.


They are saying that the jet stream has been moving farther south and that will bring colder and longer winters to the US.  That has happened this year.  We'll see what happens in the future.


Thanks to Pete R. who pointed out a mistake I made in my previous post concerning eyeglasses.  It should have read, " Previously they were found to date to as early as 1727 but have now been found to go back as far as 1714. "


Any help in dating items can be useful at some point.  It is always helpful to have an idea about how old dug items might be.


You can't always go by what our historic markers say.  That is one thing T. D. Allman points out in his book on Florida history.

Press releases by the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park claim that the park is where "Ponce de Leon landed in St. Augustine in 1513 searching for a Fountain of Youth."

Allman claims that the Fountain of Youth myth was created by Washington Irving, who was not beyond embellishing history, to put it mildly, and Allman explains that there is no evidence that de Leon ever landed in Florida north of Cape Canaveral.

I've been waiting to see if my video clip would load today.  I'm giving up on it for now.

Happy hunting
TreasureGuide@comcast.net