3/24/20 Report - More On Beach Dynamics and How Various Objects Move On The Beach. Remembering.

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

I'm going to put some things together today.  Back in 2015 I did a post on five ways I've seen coins move on a beach. I listed the following five ways.

1. Fall out of an eroding cliff, cut or dune.
2. Slide down the face of a cliff or dune.
3. Move within a rush of water.
4. Roll down a slope.
5. Flip.

There is another I did not actually observe on the beach, but I've seen demonstrated in a wave tank.  Under the right conditions coins will do what I will call "step."

When a coin is on a slope and the flow of water is up the slope, sand on the downhill side of the coin will be gradually eroded until the coin slips down one step, stop, and then take another step when the sand erodes from the downhill side again.  A step is not more than a coin length. 

People often talk about the weight of an object determining how objects move on a beach, but weight is only one factor.  And coins seldom really sink.  Usually they fall into areas where the sand has left. That might sound like the same thing, but to me there is a big difference.  Normally coins are not drawn by gravity through stable layers of sand.

To illustrate something important, as I've said several times before, a ton of Styrofoam will still float even if it weighs a ton.  Its weight does not cause it to sink in water.  Density is more relevant.  But the density of the object is not the only characteristic that determines how much an object will be moved by a given force of water either.

Four Sinkers Used In Experiment.

I once did an experiment and showed that the shape of an object will have a lot to do with how an object is moved by water on a beach.  I took four different lead sinkers (See photo above.).  There.were three different shapes.  Two were disk-shaped.

I then used a bucket of water to simulate a wave hitting the them.  They all moved different distances.  As predicted, the oval shaped sinker moved the farthest, followed by the fish-shaped sinker, then the small disk, and the large disk moved the smallest distance.

Here is the link to that post.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/8513-report-what-actually-determines.html

When the density is held constant, weight will have some effect, but so will the shape of the object.  The larger disk moved less far than the smaller disk, but neither of those were moved as far as the fish-shaped sinker or the oval.

That experiment concerns horizontal movement - movement on a relatively stable surface of sand.  But when you have erosion, the sand is moving, and possibly other objects as well.  Most of the objects that we are most concerned about will not move as much as the sand, which will be moved by the water more easily and quickly than most of the objects.

Take for example the sinkers shown above.  If it was actually a wave, there would be a lot more water, and the sand would be moving too.  While the sand was being washed away, items that move less easily would not move as much as the sand.  In some cases, those items would remain in the area vacated by the sand.

In other cases, both the sand and other items might move, but some other items will not move as fast as the sand.  And some items will move farther than others.  It is a matter of the relative movement.

If you've ever noticed, fairly dense coin lines near the water will often show an ordering or classification of coins by denomination.  Quarters will be one distance from the water and define one edge and zinc pennies will be on the other side.  With the coins having a similar shape and more or less similar density, that is determined by the different weights.  However irregularly shaped miscellaneous objects of different metals will be scattered through in a more unpredictable order.

Here are some of the densities of common metals in kg. per cubic meter.

Aluminum  2712
Brass  8400 - 8700
Copper  8940
Gold  19320
Iron 7850
Lead 11340
Platinum 21400
Silver 10490
Steel  7850
Titanium 4500
Tungsten 19600
Zinc 7135

A gold ring is not only dense, it is also round and open.  I've seen gold rings roll down the slope.   The opening presents little surface area for the water to push against, which is one reason in addition to the density that gold rings tend to be low on the beach if they have been in the area affected by moving water.

Copper sheathing, on the other hand, despite the relative density, being flat and relatively thin will end up much higher in the sand and on the beach than would be predicted by the density alone.

That is all I'll do today, but there is a lot more to it.

How objects appear to sink over time is another fairly detailed discussion that is not as simple as it might seem.  While weight has something to do with it, it is a more about the movement of objects relative to the force of the moving water and the movement of sand.

You'll see a lot of people who will tell you to look one place or another for certain kinds of objects, but they won't explain how they got there,  I believe it will help if know how and why those objects ended up where they did.

Here is the link to the post on the five ways I've seen coins move on a beach.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2015/07/7115-report-five-ways-coins-move-on.html

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I am lucky - very lucky.  Long before sunrise I often wake up and smile.  It's not that a lot of really good stuff happened to me.  I think it is more that I remember good things.  They are little things - many from my childhood - when a neighbor kid said or did something nice, for example.

I felt rich, even though we didn't have a lot.  Back then I didn't know people who had a lot more.

It must be how you remember things.  Or what you tend to remember.  I remember the time one neighbor boy stood up for me.  The time another chanted my name as I sat on the bench at a high school football game.  The time another neighbor boy asked the gym teach to let me stay and play with the older kids.  I look back on those things as kind acts, and plan to look up those boys and thank them if I can.

You see, my fond memories aren't of really big things, as most people would judge, but they populate my memories like stars or Christmas lights on a silent night.  I'm lucky I remember those things.

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Concerning coronavirus -

Large numbers of people normally die from the flu every flu season, but from what I read, this flu season has been unusually light.  Could the unusually light flu season be due to the social distancing and other measure put in place for the coronavirus?  Possible, but those precautions have only been in effect for a very short time, and flu season began in Oct.

And the same source said that of the flu and coronavirus deaths, only about 2 percent were due to the coronavirus.  I assume that those statistics are based upon comparable time frames, but at this moment I am not sure.

Www.health.com says, While everyone is in a panic about the coronavirus (officially renamed COVID-29 by the World Health Organization), there's an even deadlier virus many people are forgetting about: the flu.

Flu season is hitting its stride right now in the US. So far, the CDC has estimated (based on weekly influenza surveillance data) that at least 12,000 people have died from influenza between Oct. 1, 2019 through Feb. 1, 2020, and the number of deaths may be as high as 30,000.

The CDC also estimates that up to 31 million Americans have caught the flu this season, with 210,000 to 370,000 flu sufferers hospitalized because of the virus...

Just some context, however statistics are not yet complete on this flu season.   

I'll try to get you good statistics and references on this.

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The predictions are for a small increase in the Treasure Coast surf - up to three or four feet this weekend.

Enjoy your quiet time as well as your metal detecting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/29/18 Report - Surf Getting Higher. Tropical Storm Leslie. Thousands of Coins and Objects Found.

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

Tropical Storm Leslie

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Tropical Storm Leslie is in the Atlantic, east of Bermuda.  It is expected to become a hurricane and move southeast.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

The surf predictions have decreased a little, but the Treasure Coast  is still expected to get some good surf for a few days.

Unfortunately, it looks like the wind will continue from the east for just as long.

Wind Map for Sept. 24

Source: Ventusky.com

A nice breeze started today.

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Archaeologists have unearthed vast quantities of coins, pearls, and hairpins under the floors of medieval churches throughout Scandinavia.

More than 20,000 coins have been found in Norway alone, half of which date to between 1180 CE and 1320 CE.

Norway was likely home to thousands of wooden churches in the Middle Ages, known as stave churches. Twenty-eight of them have been preserved to this day and a few hundred other churches with roots in medieval times have also survived.

More than 100,000 coins discovered so far

Archaeologists in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have all made similar discoveries of a great numbers of coins and other objects under wooden church floors.

Here is the link for more about that.

http://sciencenordic.com/thousands-medieval-trinkets-discovered-underneath-scandinavian-churches

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Here is a question to think about.

Which of the following has more to do with how quickly or deep an object will sink on a beach?

a.  the objects's weight, or

b. the objects shape.

I won't give the answer yet.  I'll give you time to think about it.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/17/13 Report - Another Beach Cob Find, Cob Weights and Denominations & Beach Conditions

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

Another Recent Treasure Coast Beach Reale
Find and Photo by William M.

Yesterday I showed a cob found by William M.  He was going through his finds and was excited to see that he had dug another cob.

The one I showed yesterday I'm guessing from the photos might be a Lima half reale.  William is going to get it weighed so then we'll have a better idea if it is a half reale for sure.

This one is small and probably a half reale too.  It looks like a rather typical beach find.  It appears to be a Mexico half.  You can tell from the ends of the cross that it was minted in Mexico.

The one he showed yesterday had a bar across the ends of the cross instead of the ball, like this one.

We'll see what if any more we can learn about these cobs.  Maybe we'll get some more photos.

One Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide.

The above is pretty much the kind of thing that you'll typically find around the Treasure Coast right now.   

There are several things to notice.  One is the sea weed and the sea weed line, which shows that light materials including sand had been coming in.  The sea weed line can also tell you where the last high tide was.

On this beach a sand bar that was in shallow water is now pretty much attached to the front beach.    In this photo, that would be between the white water and top seaweed line.

The black narrow rectangle shows the approximate area where I was getting miscellaneous targets.  The targets were deep, below several inches of sand and near the top of a covered layer of shells.

When you don't know the denomination of a cob, you can often figure it out from its weight. Here are the proper weights for the denominations of silver cobs according to Royal Proclamations up to the year 1728.

8 reales -  27.468 grams
4 reales -  13.734 grams
2 reales -  6.867 grams
1 reale  -  3.4335 grams
1/2 reale -  1.7167 grams
1/4 reale -  0.8584 grams

As you probably know, cobs were not always made to the proper weight.  Many were off when they were minted.   But I think you can expect most cobs found on the beach to be slightly under weight due in part to corrosion.  That has certainly been my experience.  Most of the cobs that I've found in the past were just a touch underweight to considerably underweight.   Sometimes you can tell when a cob has lost a lot of material to corrosion by looking at it.

Cobs that were minted overweight cheated both the owner and the Royal Hacienda.   If they were too much overweight, it would be detected and the entire batch would be remelted, costing the mint and assayer a lot of money.

In 1728 the prescribed weights for reales were reduced slightly and stayed the same until 1825.

William's cob shown above looks like it has that common black crust on it.  Maybe we'll get a photo of the other side soon.


Ingrid is in Mexico and Humberto is headed north into the North Atlantic.  No other storms appear on the National Hurricane Service maps right now.

One Foot Cut on One Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday.

The cut shown here only ran a short distance.  There were a few cut scallops too.  See photo below.

A higher surf of 3 - 5 feet is now predicted for Wednesday and Thursday.  

Maybe I'll be able to increase my beach detecting conditions rating.  

Low tide today will be around 1 PM.

The high tide will be a little higher than normal.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

7/17/12 Report - How To Tell The Denomination of a Worn Cob

Written by the treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeaches report.blogspot.com.

Here are four silver cobs, all minted in Mexico, and all from the same 1715 shipwreck beach. 

The denomination is visible on only one of the four. 

So how do you know the denomination when it is not marked on the cob?

One way that people sometimes use, is the weight of the cob.

An eight reale should weigh about 27.3 grams, a four real about 13.65 grams, a two real about 6.825 grams, a one real about 3.4 grams, a half real about 1.7 grams and a quarter real about .85 grams.

You can't always go by weight though.  Besides the fact that it appears that some cobs were not manufactured at exactly the correct weight, some cobs lost significant amounts of silver while rolling around in the salt water and sand.

Can you tell the denomination of these cobs?

Three of them are near the proper weight for their denomination.   One is way off.

From top to bottom is a 2 real, 1 real, half real and another half real.

The top one is the same two real that I showed a few days ago when I talked about the shields.

The last half real has been severely corroded and has lost nearly half of its original weight.   In addition to loss of weight, I can tell that it corroded by the loss of detail in the design.

When you can't tell by weight, you can often tell the denomination by the design of the cob, when you can see enough of it.

On the undersized cob, you can make out the cross, which is the type used by the Mexico mint. 

There are rare quarter reals that show a cross, but this is not likely one of those.  Most quarter reals show a castle on one side and a lion on the other. 

On the other side, this one shows a bit of a Carlos monogram.  That would indicate that it is an undersized Mexican half real rather than a quarter real.

To sum up the main point, when you don't see a denomination mark on a cob, and can't tell by weight, you can usually tell by any remaining design features.  That might take a lot of research in some cases.


My apologies to those of you who read this blog early in the morning.   I often have a lot of typos and errors that don't get fixed until later in the day.


There are no storms brewing.  The wind is south/southwest.  Seas are running about two feet, decreasing later today.  No change in conditions predicted.


Here is another surf web site that you might check out.

http://www.swellinfo.com/surf-forecast/fort-pierce-florida.html


Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net