So how would you detect this lake bottom thats now on top?

[deepskyal]

So how would you detect this lake bottom that's now on top?

Howdy folks. Had quite the adventure today. (Bout time I got off my lazy butt.)
First I went to Legionville, Pa...took pics (current is so much more useful) and then I went to North Park Lake in Allegheny County, Pa.

I had an idea about detecting NP Lake's dredging but I had a serious change of mind today. It was nothing...and I do mean NOTHING! like I expected it to look like.
Now mind you...I never had the opportunity to actually detect a lake bottom and couldn't now if I wanted to...but they dredged the lake and that's the next best thing....even better...when you consider this park has a history going back a whole lot of years and almost 20' of silt is being dug up and dumped in another location as a restoration project.
The primary area they started is where a tower projects out into the water where people can walk out on a rail and look over the lake. WHAT A GREAT PLACE TO TOSS A COIN FROM!!!!! Been going on for close to what 70...80 years...100 or more maybe
They got quite the hole dug there right now. Sorry I didn't get a pic of that.
But anyhow...
I found a trail from one of the park shelters that leads down to this veritable gold mine in coins, jewelery and relics.
I should tell you I am pretty out of shape so I had left my detector in the car on this exploratory mission because I wasn't sure if there was alternate access besides the road that was off limits to pedestrians and non-construction vehicles.
It was a small bit of a hike but I followed a couple trails down til I reached the heap.....probably an acre or more right now!...alas...my heaping pile of treasure beheld me....coins! Jewelry! relics!

That beautiful, smooth, easily pliable ground I was expecting...wasn't! And even as I think about it...how many years of development and enlarging of communities added their waste to the water as silt build up before sewers were mandated...

Seriously, I had a freshly planted cornfield in my mind before I saw it with my very eyes.

My gosh what a mass of stinking, slimy, fly-infested, squishy, hole-laden, mounding...need I continue

I spent around 2 hours just aimlessly walking around in awe atop the hill of hidden gold!

How in gods earth do you detect this? As vast the expanse, I thought surely, odds would/should be in my favor that a shiny piece of silver should stick up from the bazillions of square inches of freshly turned dirt.

Noooo. Can you guess what the very first thing I spy exposed is Huh? Can you? Come on, you metal detect! What do you always find?
A friggin pull tab!
That's right...A gosh darned pull tab!( I didn't mean to say friggen...yes I did...oh...whateva!!!)
DETECTING>>>>IT IS WHAT IT IS!

But I persued. I walked thru the slime and around the mountainous clods, into the holes and over the ridges, along the bull dozer tracks...
Whew...I was dying I tell ya.

Now had I had my detector...I surely would have turned it on, since I was already up to my ankles in it...not literally...but I was in a mindset that surely there would be some goodies on the surface....I mean come-on...100 years worth of muck spread over an acre....I mean WOO HOO!

Never did find a coin...BUT!.... I did see some stuff scattered about that would/does, indicate that this is definitely a place of hidden wealth.

2- 70'ish beer bottles (that's 1970's) laying on the top that made it thru the dredging , hauling, dumping and spreading process in one piece. Quite a few golf balls in various states of slimyness, a copper or brass whatitz...kinda coffee cup shaped on the back side...a shredded tire...(got to have a tire or two from a lake bottom close to a road) some other rotted metal pieces....

But back to not having my detector with me.

Take a look at these pics and tell me how you'd go about detecting this mess. No level ground, ankle breaking holes, flies and some other fairly large flying insect that kinda freaks you out... dense, 3' high gooey clumps....rancid puddles...100 years worth of slime condensed into big, fat, compressed balls!

Now mind you.... this work is suppose to be going on Monday thru Friday, 8am to 5pm, every week for the next 6 or 7 months. That leaves weekends when they aren't working!
BUT...(Always got to be a but), but this is a good but...there is a work stoppage right now.

All that goo and lumpy landscape is from the area around that tower! NOT going to be buried for now.

So how do you detect a landscape like this?
And there was the hike back out. Yea...I didn't mention that...or what walking around with a detector in hand thru a mine field would be like. Lose your footing trying to step over a clump and what happens when you got a detector in your hand? Don't know how much you like your detector but I'd probably break a bone somewhere trying to keep from breaking it.

I don't know how much area I covered in 2 hours...not much given the terrain. But 2 hours was too much for this goat. I barely made it back to my car. That uphill hike is a killer for an overweight smoker.

Most clods are 2 to 3' thick, 3' high...fresh scoops from the excavator they use that don't beak up because they are so dense, when they are released in the dump trucks they maintain the form of the excavator bucket.

But it's a detecting gold mine!

Enjoy the pics. If you're interested in checking this out and you're in the area, check out the post on the Pa. forum...http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,347693.0.html

Al

 

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[Bum Luck]

Re: So how would you detect this lake bottom that's now on top?

Looks like Hawaii, only you won't get sliced and diced if you fall down in it .....!

Not only that, there's absolutely nothing in lava, but there's probably lots of stuff in here.

(Secret tip) - learn how to operate a bulldozer (!)