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Culpeper - From Infinium To TDI To GPX


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Over ten years ago I was pushing pretty hard on the idea that high power pulse induction detectors would eventually find use for more than just nugget detecting. Relic hunters in bad ground seemed a particularly obvious situation where PI detectors could pick up where the VLFs left off.

Daniel TN just made a great post over at Dankowski’s about the shift from VLF to PI, and how the PI use progressed up the power ladder from Garrett Infinium to White’s TDI to Minelab GPX.

I ended up calling this Steve’s Law Of Target Depletion. The basic premise is that if high value targets exist, people will start with discriminating VLF detectors and dig the easy targets. However, knowing good finds remain, over time more trash is dug and more powerful detectors used. As long as any chance of a good find remains, this progression will ultimately deplete a good location of all targets, good and bad.

Prospectors see this all the time. A location will start with trash and gold. VLFs cherry pick out the easy stuff. Then the “dig it all” troops go to work. Sooner or later you get to where just finding a target, any target, gets to be a challenge. Yet as long as a single target remains, good finds still might happen. If nothing else the trash can hide good targets lurking below, and so even trash remaining can be a good sign. You can never call a place detected out until no targets at all remain in the ground that can be found. And even then, a newer, more powerful detector may make the place come to life again, at least for a time.

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