Techniques For Soil With High Ferrous Content?

[Tallasatree]

Hi All, my first post here. Hope this is the appropriate section for this topic.

So I'm new to metal detecting. Bought a Minelab X-Terra Pro a week ago. I live on an old farm dating back to the mid-late 1800's or so. Figured I'd learn in my back yard and maybe find something special. Things were going ok, apart from realizing how much iron trash there is on an old farm, but last night after the first rain in a few weeks things went south. Both the X-Terra and my pointer were telling me there were targets everywhere, I mean literally everywhere. Almost lost my mind after a few digs of finding nothing, not even a nail, just red soil...even a handful of it triggered my pointer.

Is this a thing? Too high in iron content making my soil nearly impossible to hunt? I'd love to hear anyone's similar experiences and/or tips for success.

 

Here's the first something special I did find during the dry spell. Late 1800's I think? Almost looks as though it went through a fire, which lines up with what history I know of the place.

[JCR]

Welcome to the Forum You have made a good choice as there are lots of experienced & helpful folks here. Others, more qualified will chime in I am sure.

Detecting in mineralized soil can be a real challenge, especially when wet & conductive. That is what you are experiencing after the recent rain. The moisture activates & connects the soil electrically so it is seen as one big background target to the detector and your pin pointer. You have a good detector and as the soil dries the false signals will start to dissipate.

In the mean time, it may help to reduce the detectors Sensitivity to a very moderate level, add some Discrimination to cut out some of the Iron responses and sweep the coil more slowly & evenly. A lower frequency choice will also help, as will a medium fast Recovery speed and a good Ground Balance. The Xtera Pro being a single frequency detector will still struggle a bit on that type of ground. Be patient and learn as you go.

It sounds like you have a very interesting place to hunt. That is a nice pocket watch case. There will be a lot of small iron and other types of trash, but the more you dig, the more you learn and it gets it out of your way to find the good stuff being hidden. Have fun and keep us posted with your questions and successes.

[kac]

Highly mineralized ground can be noisy. If your machine is chatty use a lower frequency and swing bit slower. Lower frequencies are less responsive to low conductors. Machines can only go just so deep and ground phase effects the range of all ib machines. Just nature of the beast.

Sometimes smaller and narrower coils will do better in sniffing out targets as they will be generally less noisy.

As for iron infested grounds that contain bits of rust from processed iron like old nails, sheet metal bits etc the best option for me has been an analog with concentric coil. Some the old tesoros can be picked up cheap and that is the type of hunting they really shine.

Very cool pocket watch, I just found one the other day in a ball field.

[RickUK]

In situations like that i would tend to use a much smaller coil,so you dont get the ground coverage but when you have so much junk you have the high probability of target masking ie 2 targets under the coil at the same time but the discrimination is knocking out both targets,so this why my personal opinion a small 6 coil could well be the best way forward.

[KS Stick]

Your Watch could be German Silver they turn brown in the dirt try and polish it with silver polish good luck with the new hobby

Stick

[GB_Amateur]

It would help us some if you indicated your approximate location.  For example, if in the USA, name the state or at least the region of the country.

When my local ground is damp, my Garrett Carrot will be noisier when placed into the dug hole.  One thing that helps me in these cases is to turn it off, put the tip in the just exacavated pile of removed dirt, and then turn it back on.  (Checking that the dirt pile doesn't have any conductors first is a good idea.  😏)

You didn't mention if you did a ground balance before/during this latest challenging detecting session.  Maybe you did....  When I return to a site with my multifrequency detectors (ML Equinox 800 and Manticore) I typically don't do a GB if I know the current value set is consistent with what I've seen from that site, but recent environmental changes (such as the extra ground moisture you describe) make it a good idea.  Ground balancing in iron infested ground can be a challenge, too, but usually you can move some distance away, to a quieter (iron-wise) spot and be seeing the same ground.  Multifrequency detectors are more forgiving as they can effectively 'cancel' the ground signal internally by comparing in different frequencies.  Your X-Terra Pro, not being (simultaneous) multifrequency, is going to be a bit more sensitive to ground conditions, but people have been detecting with single frequency for more than half a century so it's manageable.

[BigSkyGuy]

The fact that things went south after the rain suggests to me that you may have some degree of salt in your soil, such as fertilizer, cow urine, or salt from a lick. I have a site that I can hunt in Park 1 on the Equinox when dry, but need to switch to Beach mode when wet. Lots of cows and evaporation of flood irrigation water at this site. You may want to try the Beach mode on the Pro when the soil is wet. Let us know how it goes.