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What Keeps Gold From Falling Too Deep To Recover On Beaches?


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Hey folks! I got into recreational prospecting a few years back and love it. One day YouTube decided to show me some metal detecting videos and now I love the idea of jewelry hunting on the beach. Planning to buy a Vanquish or Simplex and get into the game on some NorCal beaches.

That leads me to a dumb question - when the ocean washes over a gold ring on the sand, given that it is so much denser than the surrounding sand why doesn't it sink so far that it's undetectable?

In the Sierras I need to get down to bedrock to find decent gold. Is there a small recovery window to get gold jewelry prior to it going so deep that it can't be recovered? Is the ocean constantly pulling off layers of sand at a rate that's somewhat similar to the rate the gold falls?

Trying to understand the basics so I can grasp where I would have the most luck on a beach in the wet areas.

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3 hours ago, snufferbottle said:

Hey folks! I got into recreational prospecting a few years back and love it. One day YouTube decided to show me some metal detecting videos and now I love the idea of jewelry hunting on the beach. Planning to buy a Vanquish or Simplex and get into the game on some NorCal beaches.

That leads me to a dumb question - when the ocean washes over a gold ring on the sand, given that it is so much denser than the surrounding sand why doesn't it sink so far that it's undetectable?

In the Sierras I need to get down to bedrock to find decent gold. Is there a small recovery window to get gold jewelry prior to it going so deep that it can't be recovered? Is the ocean constantly pulling off layers of sand at a rate that's somewhat similar to the rate the gold falls?

Trying to understand the basics so I can grasp where I would have the most luck on a beach in the wet areas.

Actually the principle of a firmer and harder layer is correct if You talk about where the heavy stuff quit the descent...The problem is how fastly will be covered with more sand to be still detectable. This is one of the reasons cause most of finds are usually old stuff buried long time before and uncovered by the ocean in certain days, sometimes years after.

The beach is a sort of an hell, really different from other environments and can change in hours, daily.

Supposing that you have an area on land that produced gold nuggets before, You still can find almost the same area with little differences even months after, maybe with icy ground or snow in the worst case.In the beach, after a tide cycle, anything can be different. It all depends on how far the coil is from targets and this change continuously... That's the principle of crazyness I'm victim of....

 

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Over here it seems to be a cycle of sand build up especially in summer, sand removal in winter and hurricane season. Sand moves around obstructions like piers or seawalls. I have noticed after a day or two of heavy surf from the right direction, things get churned up and redistributed. Then if the beach has lots of people who wear and lose the type of jewelry you want to find, how long since they dropped it. And when will the other detectorists arrive? Some say the shape of jewelry has a lot to do with it's movement. I hunt the old stuff so not sure about that. Happy hunting!

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14 hours ago, snufferbottle said:

when the ocean washes over a gold ring on the sand, given that it is so much denser than the surrounding sand why doesn't it sink so far that it's undetectable?

Nothing stops that from happening, and most items in actively moving sand do sink farther than we can detect. They end up on hard layers, or as deep as the deepest storm scour that has occurred since they were lost.

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    If you want to get a continously updated,  in-depth explanation's of beach dynamics, go to TreasureBeachesReport.Blogspot! He is very good at explaining how all different objects behave in the surf zone, and dry sand areas! And how to read the beaches!👍👍

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My experience is the heavy objects only sink an inch or two,but the wet sand moves sometimes erosion maybe several feet deep releasing buried treasure (rings and coins) Those not found maybe covered up by sand when the sand is move and fills the area back up.

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On 10/18/2020 at 11:02 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

Nothing stops that from happening, and most items in actively moving sand do sink farther than we can detect. They end up on hard layers, or as deep as the deepest storm scour that has occurred since they were lost.

Steve and FloridaSon are on target.  Gold will continue to sink in the sand until some denser, compact layer or obstacle stops it.  If it doesn’t hit hard pack, it will definitely sink out of detector range.  That factor is why we watch and hope for serious erosion...especially along the treasure coast.  Once heavy tides have stripped away multiple layers of sand, previously undiscovered goodies can appear.

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Here ..... Being the Chesapeake Bay anything is possible. Movement of gold can be nothing up the coves and rivers other then sinking to a harder layer...........then in the open bay gold can be on the constant move until it hits something to slow it down or stop it. Being most of the beach's were closed in the late 60's you would think all has found a resting place. But seems there is no way of predicting...you just have to get out and do the time and find the openings..and hit them hard while its good for it can change as fast as it opened.

One thing about storms, they can be great,........ ok..or devastating to a beach...

My first year of metal detecting was 2008, we had the perfect storm come thru at the ocean in 2009. Luckily I had reservations at a hotel near by and was able to get 3 good days of hunting in.... You could not dig a target ...then Pinpoint it for there were so many shallow good targets. By the 4th day it was hard to even find a signal sand was coming in so fast.

Video is a little rough ....I was one of the first 5 to do Youtube metal detecting videos and you can tell by the cam video...quality. NOthing like the Go Pro's they have now days..but it is a saved memory.

 

 

 

 

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Great detecting skills. You learned the Minelab well, limiting your junk to a minimum.

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I'm finding that i have the most luck searching after really high tides.. even if there was nothing to be found the days before, the high tides seem to remove just enough sand to get a bit deeper.. I've also noticed that along a few beaches here the sand gets stripped from one side and deposited further along the other side.. these beaches are constantly moving and i've found they're the best for detecting as objects don't get a chance to settle too deep to detect.. 

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