Coin Movement

[boodydarn]

As a semi-soil scientist, I would be interested in knowing how and at what speed different coins of different metals travel through various soil types. Does anyone know? I think they would travel from fastest to slowest in the following order: sand, sandy loam, loam clayey loam, loamy clay and Clay. I also realize that the amount of rain and freezing would affect the rate of travel. It rarely freezes in Alabama so I can discount freezing. I guess you could use annual average rainfall as an adjustment on each soil type to compare between soil types. I assume also that denser coins would move faster. Now this would be a good life-time dissertation project for some professor who needs to kill 30 years or so. lol But what I really want to know is in 1966 you drop a clad dime and a silver dime, and/or quarter, How much deeper would the silver be in 40 years compared to the clad on each soil type? I could set up the experiment for anyone (young) who wishes to take this on.

Here at Auburn one of our research fields has been cared for since the beginning of WWII. It contains beach soils from all over the earth. Its purpose was to test various landing vehicles on these soil types.

Just wondering...Boodydarn in Alabama.

 

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[RHoward]

Personally I believe the rate of a coin traveling through the soil is mostly determined by the vegitation. Plants grow and die leaving their remains on top of the ground and in short order return to soil covering the coin. So the more vegetation that grows every year the faster the coin will travel. This resoning came from observation of two different places I detect. The first is a park that was flooded by our 100 year flood in 1964. I use a plugger to remove coins in parks, it disturbs the lawn the least. After ten years or so you could remove a plug and see a perfect 1 mm line all the way around the plug about 2 1/2 inches down. The second place is a school that has an area that has no or very little vegetation and I have found wheaties and silver coins from only 1/2 to 2 inches down. Freezing can lift a coin up in the soil, don't know if it would make it sink any farther.

No scientific data to back this up just observation of 40 years using a metal detector.

 

[Oak]

I think i can give you some help on this topic.
When I was a teenager, a friend of the family lost a coin (1893 commemorative half) at my Mom's place in the Daytona Beach, Florida area.
The soil in this area is sandy. This coin was lost in her yard. The yard was raked so there was very little mulch build up. I found that coin 40 years later using a White's MXT. The coin was 7 inches deep. My parents were the only people who ever lived on this property.
I hope this information will help you. If you have any question, just let me know.

HH

Oak -- sweet home Alabama

 

[rockhound]

I think both of you are right. I have noticed where there is heavy vegetation, coins are deeper. Also
yearly rainfall and soil type definitely have an impact on how fast a coin dissapears below the grass, or soil. I regularly hunt a park that has been in use for 50 plus years, both as a little league field, and for the yearly carnival in earlier years. I have found both silver and clad coins next to each other, and only a year apart in datestamp. Both 64 and 65 dimes have come up nearly side beside,one being silver, the other clad. The silver will always be a 1/2 inch deeper. Although you really have no idea when they were dropped. It is the only part of the equation you don't have. Naturally the denser the metal, the softer the soil/sand, the faster it will sink. I have detected the dry sand on the beach where the dropped coins/jewelry sink faster than anywhere I have ever seen.

 

[diggemall]

I suspect that there are a lot of variables that enter into the situation: Frost or no frost ? Vegatative growth, or not ?

In areas that have an annual freeze-thaw cycle, I would expect objects to be slowly lifted to the surface by it. (that's the only way I can explain why farm fields that have been plowed every year for over 100 years continue to produce stones that need to be removed for farming. A plow only reaches down 6-10 inches typically. Over the course of 200 or more plowings (spring and fall) one could safely assume that every stone of substantial size within that range would have surfaced at least once. The only thing that explains new ones is frost pushing them up into that zone from below (or UFO droppings, but that's another thread)

On the other hand If you've ever tended a lush lawn at an older home that is also adjacent to pavement you would have noticed that the pavement always seems low compared to the lawn. Gotta be vegetative growth / deposition / decay making new soil.

Down south where there is no frost cycle, I would expect the denser coins to sink. Especially if the soil is regularly wetted to near saturation, and even more so if low-frequency vibration is present (anywhere even remotely close to a highway, railway, etc.)

Bottom line: my guess is that there are no "standards" that can be applied - just get the best detector you can afford and have at it

Diggem'

Oh yeah - Boodydarn - sounds to me like you're in the perfect situation to get a kick-bu++ Federal grant to study this one

 

[Rd2nowr]

I think that it would make a great test for some of the kids at Auburn to study. I would think that the sol conditions being more rocky in that part of the state would tend to make the series of test more difficult to conduct, but who knows? Oh yeah, 6 times is over! There won't be a seventh!
ROLL TIDE ROLL !!!

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Many variables. Hereabouts with hoarfrost a coin could potentially drop 6" into the soil in the first week if it was dropped into a frost crack; or tipped into one as the frost cracked the moist soil as it repeatedly froze and thawed. Then, if a plow went past it could be 10" to 14" deep come spring.

Worms, roots, mechanical soil tilling, aeration, cultivating, sediment from flooding, topsoil addition for lawns, grading, etc,. etc. Man just can't leave dirt be.

In this area I have found 100 year old coins at the surface and 10 year old coins 8" deep. I think there is some circulation that keeps them "floating" above the hardpan layer. At least that is the case in this area.

 

[Monty]

veryone agrees that there are many variables. My opinion,( and opinions are like you know what, everyone has one), is that there are too many variables to ever find a difinitive answer to that proposition. To me that's like asking how high is up? Monty

 

[Silver Fox]

As a semi-soil scientist, I would be interested in knowing how and at what speed different coins of different metals travel through various soil types. Does anyone know? I think they would travel from fastest to slowest in the following order: sand, sandy loam, loam clayey loam, loamy clay and Clay. I also realize that the amount of rain and freezing would affect the rate of travel. It rarely freezes in Alabama so I can discount freezing. I guess you could use annual average rainfall as an adjustment on each soil type to compare between soil types. I assume also that denser coins would move faster. Now this would be a good life-time dissertation project for some professor who needs to kill 30 years or so. lol But what I really want to know is in 1966 you drop a clad dime and a silver dime, and/or quarter, How much deeper would the silver be in 40 years compared to the clad on each soil type? I could set up the experiment for anyone (young) who wishes to take this on.

Here at Auburn one of our research fields has been cared for since the beginning of WWII. It contains beach soils from all over the earth. Its purpose was to test various landing vehicles on these soil types.

Just wondering...Boodydarn in Alabama.

I'm not a scientist of any type but I stayed in a ... motel once! Or I'm not a scientist but I play one on TV!

Seriously, I don't accept that coins "travel" once they fall; they are not bodies that continue to defy gravity once the earth stops their travel. What I've seen in city parks is that the falling leaves and settling dust eventually form a layer over the coin but the coin stays on the ground it fell on. I once found a Barber dime under an old leaf. Many here report finding wheats in old abandoned sites. At the beach the coin travels as deep as its weight will carry it and then it also settles there. Given that the particular areas are not messed with by humans.

I think your hypothetical coins would be found on the spot they fell on with just a light amount of leaves/dirt falling on them with composition not being a factor. Well, perhaps this factor: an earthquake.

 

[Ant]

As a semi-soil scientist, I would be interested in knowing how and at what speed different coins of different metals travel through various soil types. Does anyone know? I think they would travel from fastest to slowest in the following order: sand, sandy loam, loam clayey loam, loamy clay and Clay. I also realize that the amount of rain and freezing would affect the rate of travel. It rarely freezes in Alabama so I can discount freezing. I guess you could use annual average rainfall as an adjustment on each soil type to compare between soil types. I assume also that denser coins would move faster. Now this would be a good life-time dissertation project for some professor who needs to kill 30 years or so. lol But what I really want to know is in 1966 you drop a clad dime and a silver dime, and/or quarter, How much deeper would the silver be in 40 years compared to the clad on each soil type? I could set up the experiment for anyone (young) who wishes to take this on.

Here at Auburn one of our research fields has been cared for since the beginning of WWII. It contains beach soils from all over the earth. Its purpose was to test various landing vehicles on these soil types.

Just wondering...Boodydarn in Alabama.

That would be right in my experience. Also, I have found 70 year old coins in the desert that happened to be imbedded in the cliché, no plants around either.

Some say that the rule of thumb (if there could be one) is that coins sink on the average 1/16" per year. But we all know that there are too many variables to make a solid judgment.