9/30/19 Report - Stratigraphic Discrimination For Metal Detecting. Big Tides and Surf Predicted.

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

A few days ago I introduced the term stratigraphic discrimination to refer to selectively ignoring a particular layer or layers of ground.

There are times when you might be interested in only one or more layers.  For example, if you are interested in old items at a land site, you might ignore surface targets.  I mentioned the Surface Blanking feature of the Royal Sabre detector from the 1980s that provided a Surface Blanking function for that purpose.  While I haven't seen a surface blanking setting on other metal detectors, many do give a depth reading.

There are times when you might choose to hunt only for surface targets, such as when you are hunting a specific item that was recently lost.  In that case, you would ignore all of those more faint detector signals that night indicate a more deeply buried target.

On a beach the situation can be a little more complex due to the frequently shifting sands and changing of layers.   On the Treasure Coast the brown/orange deeper sand is often associated with old shipwreck items, however the same old items can end up on or very near the surface.

These days a light-colored sand from recent renourishment projects is often seen covering the dunes and the beach.  In most cases that sand is a bad sign, however there can be times when good old targets can end up laying on top of that sand.  That can happen, even though it is not common.

In the past I would never ignore deep targets, or any target for that matter, but as you know, deep targets on a beach can be very difficult to recover, especially when near the water's edge, and sometimes you might not have time to spend on a target like that, especially when there are easier good targets.

People are usually very focused on deep targets on a shipwreck beach, but in my experience most of my shipwreck finds have not been real deep.  In fact, many have been laying on or very near the surface.  My usual strategy is to focus on those areas of the beach where coins and such things can be found very near the surface.  I've mentioned before that I've eye-balled several reales over the years.  They were just laying there to be easily seen.  Hunting those types of areas is what reading a beach is all about.

There are times when I will try to get the very deepest targets and struggle to get the maximum depth out of a detector, but it is my opinion that the deepest targets represent a very small total value compared to the total value of near surface targets and take a disproportionate amount of time to find and recover.  Still, if you have the time, there is no reason to leave anything.

I'm not saying that I never go for the very deepest of targets.  There are times when I do, and when I do that I have some reason to believe that it will pay off.   I have reason to believe that those targets could have a high value and there are not equally valuable targets in the area that can be recovered more quickly.

Let's say I have a good coin hole, and the top layers have produced some very nice targets and the signals are becoming more scarce and faint.  Then I might change my settings and search techniques or even switch metal detectors that will be more effective on the deeper and fainter targets.

I often use one metal detector for general scanning, but will then switch detectors when I have reason. It is my opinion that constantly seeking the deepest and faintest targets is not efficient.  That can be a poor use of your time.  Techniques and strategies can be situational.  That is why I often like to do a little scanning, which provides additional information on the situation.

If you want to do stratigraphic discrimination and use the depth readout to do it, you might want to test the depth meter on your metal detector to become more familiar with the peculiarities and how accurate it really is.  That is something that I hope to test some day on the Equinox.  Perhaps you will want to test your own depth meter and offer some of your observations.

I could at this point get into some details on the shifting layers of a beach, but that will have to wait for some other time.

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Here is the predicted surf from MagicSeaWeed.com.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

They are predicting some pretty high surf for later today and tomorrow.   It has been pretty breezy lately, and we are supposed to have a very high tide today.

I'm curious to see what, if anything, will happen to the beaches.

You can't go home again because it never leaves you.  TG.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/28/19 Report - Detectorists Finds Ancient Gold. Swimming IPhone. Stratigrahic Discrimination. Some Big Surf Coming(?)

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

Source: See News.err link below.

… Metal detector hobbyists consider themselves lucky when they come across an old button or coin instead of just the usual old nails or scrap metal. Amateur treasure hunters, however, don't even dream of finding the type of thing that set off Jegor Klimov's metal detector in Saaremaa earlier this month.

Among the items found at a 1,700-year-old sacrificial site were luxurious local crossbow brooches, some made of silver, some gold-plated silver, as well as Scandinavian-looking belt plaques with silver plates, writes regional Saarte Hääl (link in Estonian).

The most unique item to be found at the site, however, is a massive gold bracelet or collar from the 3rd century.

"With this find, the signal was sort of indistinct, sort of heay," Klimov described. "I doubted whether or not to dig. But here it is! It's like winning the jackpot! Unearthing something like this is amazing. And it is amazing for Estonian history too, because nothing like this has been found in Estonia before. Gold finds are rare in Estonia to begin with; we know of just four or five finds. But this is the coolest of them all." ...

That quote is from an article you can find by using the following link.

https://news.err.ee/983708/archaeologists-find-rare-gold-bracelet-in-saaremaa

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In forty feet of water off the coast of Boca Raton after Dorian a scuba diver found an iPhone that was lost by a boater 20 miles south near Hollywood Florida about a year earlier.

Here is that link.

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/boca-raton/missing-iphone-travels-20-miles-in-atlantic-ocean-found-off-south-florida-coast

Remember that iphones will trap air.  They are water resistant.  Some have a water-proof case.  That means trapped air and buoyancy.

The same thing happens with watches, which can end up in areas where less dense things tend to accumulate.

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Concerning the one mystery item I posted yesterday Sebastian Steve said,  My guess is a clock, and not that old as it has phillips screws.

Anybody else?

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When we talk about discrimination we are usually talking about discriminating a particular type of item or items made of a particular type of meta..  There was at least one metal detector that provided an option that you might call stratigraphic discrimination.  The metal detector I'm talking about is the Tesoro Royal Sabre that, which was sold in the 1980s and had a number of nice features, one of which was Surface Blanking.   It also had notch discrimination and reject.  Not bad for an 80s detector.

The online manual for the Royal Sabre says of the Surface Blanking Battery Test Switch - This switch is used to control the surface blanking function, and to perform the battery test. Surface blanking is used to eliminate the detector's response to good targets which are shallow.

I used the Royal Sabre some over the years and up until the time that they refused to honor the advertised Tesoro Lifetime Warranty, but I only used the surface blanking function a few times. One time that I remember using it was on a very trashy site where it appeared that a cabin or shed of some type once stood.  It blanked out a lot of loud surface signals and permitted me to pick out smaller signals, such as coins between the surface trash.  Surface Blanking might seem like a good idea in theory, but I never got a lot of use out of it.

Wikipedia says, Stratigraphy is a key concept to modern archaeological theory and practice. Modern excavation techniques are based on stratigraphic principles. The concept derives from the geological use of the idea that sedimentation takes place according to uniform principles. When archaeological finds are below the surface of the ground (as is most commonly the case), the identification of the context of each find is vital in enabling the archaeologist to draw conclusions about the site and about the nature and date of its occupation. It is the archaeologist's role to attempt to discover what contexts exist and how they came to be created. Archaeological stratification or sequence is the dynamic superimposition of single units of stratigraphy, or contexts.  

There are times when I do what could be called stratigraphic discrimination, but I can do it by listening to the signals and using the brain for the processing rather than letting the electronics do it for me.

I don't recall anyone talking much about using Surface Blanking, and I'm not aware of it being provided by newer metal detectors.  While I can see the theory, I don't know how effectively it was implemented in either the technology or practice.  For me, I'd usually rather remove the surface trash.

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Like Elvis, Karen has left the building.  Only Lorenzo remains on the Atlantic National Hurricane Center map.  We are having some big tides now.

Here are the surf predictions.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

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