Target movement under beach erosion conditions

[Billinoregon]

We have heavily sanded beaches here in Oregon right now, owing to an unusually long stretch without our normal Pacific storms. But with an El Niño coming, this should change soon. We know that storms scour away overlying beach sands and move them offshore, revealing "older" beach layers containing older targets. What I am wondering is how many newer targets in the summer sands are scoured out to sea along with the heavy sand. Do the waves redeposit targets in new places, or do they tend to settle the newer targets close to the old ones. In other words, do the targets tend to stay pretty much in place, just getting deeper?

 

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[redcobra8u]

Things move all of the time when erosion is occurring so it's possible for things to end up down the shoreline or even off the shoreline. Heavier objects like gold and larger coins tend to sink very rapidly until something stops them. A rocky layer or denser sands maybe.

I hunted for a ring lost in the high tide line nearing a high tide. Roughly 14 hours after lost I found it in the soft sands while the tide was out. It was almost 10 inches deep already. I was very surprised at how quickly it sank during 1 tide cycle.

So I think in the areas I hunt things sink rapidly out of range of the Excal and settle or sink less rapidly at a certain point. Explains why I found 9 rings in 2 days after a huge erosion last August. Bring on a pacific storm event. 14 mos with no erosion is enough.

 

[Billinoregon]

Red: I'm with you. We need some good old Pacific wet and windy whoppers.

 

[cudamark]

We have heavily sanded beaches here in Oregon right now, owing to an unusually long stretch without our normal Pacific storms. But with an El Niño coming, this should change soon. We know that storms scour away overlying beach sands and move them offshore, revealing "older" beach layers containing older targets. What I am wondering is how many newer targets in the summer sands are scoured out to sea along with the heavy sand. Do the waves redeposit targets in new places, or do they tend to settle the newer targets close to the old ones. In other words, do the targets tend to stay pretty much in place, just getting deeper?

Unless you have a major storm or tidal event, Heavy targets don't move all that much. Mostly just sink until hitting a layer that stops them. They might move in or out a bit and sideways if there's a strong enough current, but, were talking a few dozen feet here, not miles.

 

[stefen]

As of this morning, they predict storms should hit NorCal & Southern Oregon by next Thursday...no way of knowing the El Nino effect...

 

[Tom_in_CA]

...... What I am wondering is how many newer targets in the summer sands are scoured out to sea along with the heavy sand. Do the waves redeposit targets in new places, or do they tend to settle the newer targets close to the old ones. In other words, do the targets tend to stay pretty much in place, just getting deeper?

Bill, it depends on the ferociousness of the sand erosion going on. If it's subtle, then all your coins (even light weight zinc), just stay, while sand goes out slowly. But if it's ferocious , then yes, coins go out off-shore WITH the sand being removed. As to whether heavy gold rings go too, that too depends on the ferociousness of the storm. The heaviest of rings (and sinkers, and gold coins) will, of course, be the last to move.

The targets do come back IN with the spring/summer sand fill-in (when mother nature re-builds her beaches). But that's not nearly as fun to find the random ones coming *in*. Always better to be hunting when the sand is on its way *out*. And as to whether gold rings come back in, that's for another debate. I sometimes wonder if the gold rings just stay perpetually forevermore out there. Because we have one particular beach here , where a river-outlet creates a "break" , where all targets migrating into that outflow, get pushed out to off-shore. And then eventually the sand comes back UP on the south side of this. And we have seen that it's always only the coins, NOT the rings. Incredible coin counts (that we can tell got pushed up on shore in previous fill-ins) with poor ring ratios (when compared to the north side of this river outflow).