How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

[ziphius]

How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

Finding myself overly-caffeinated last night and thinking about how long it takes to “hunt out” a site, I decided the best thing would be to write a computer simulation of the search process. I created a 10,000 square foot lot (100 feet by 100 feet), and placed one ‘1898 Barber quarter’ at a depth of 1 inch in a random location. On average, how long would it take to find the quarter? Assume that this is the only piece of metal in the field. I assumed that with a 12 inch search coil, one could effectively search 1 square foot every 3 seconds. The search pattern is random, or ‘semi-inefficient’. No grids allowed here, but that shouldn’t skew the results, as grids are essentially systematic searches from random starting points anyway. If this sounds geeky, it is, but I sometimes do this kind of stuff for work and love doing the math. Please post your guesses. I’ll post the results soon.

Jim

 

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[Sky_Warrior]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

I would say 15 minutes since you never have to stop to dig up crap........ GREAT IDEA

You have to much time on your hands.......... I cant wait for the answer!!!

SEMPER FI

P.S. FIRST RESPONSE YES

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

In a real world application where your starting points would be random and without any tools to use as reference points (Markers, lines, etc) except objects such as trees, rocks, etc..........my conclusion is that it could take anywhere from a few seconds to a lifetime. I've hunted patches or sections of a park similar in size to what you describe and still find a silver coin or two.........and some of these places have been hit by several people over the past decades, on and on and on.

 

[greydigger]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

If you didn't repeat coverage (unlikely in a random) Total coverage in 8 hrs.
I'd guess at 4 hrs. to find.

 

[Born2Dtect]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

It will take as long as it takes to put your coil over the quarter.

Ed D.

 

[TheYAK]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

A lot depends on skill/detector used/weather etc.
I hunted a public park that has been hunted for 20yrs. Pulled up a 1922 LH silver dollar at 2 inches and the following week a 1917 SL Quarter at five inches. Both should not have been there. Simulations are great, but don't apply real life sometimes.

 

[jeff of pa]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

Unless you take a Screen & dig to Austrailia, & Screen all the dirt,
You will never hunt out a site. "Never"

Want to be a little more realistic ?

Do you have the deepest detector, the most Sensitive ?
do you dig iron bits ? nails, Tin cans ? in case there is a coin under them ?

Is there no chance of a new deeper detector coming out ?

Do you hit it at/from every angle ? cover every square inch ?

Remove every Bush, Hunt under every Large Rock ?

In dry, & wet conditions ?

If it freezes & Thaws where you are, do you hunt after the Thaw ?


I say "Never"

 

[deepskyal]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

The great thing about a hunted out site is I usually have weeks of great hunting at them. There are a couple parks I hit, not very big ones either, and I just seem to keep pulling it out of the ground.
The old timers...(not that I'm not in that catagory) hit it and cherry picked it...and never came back. The newbie's hit it, dont find much of anything, get frustrated and leave.
That leaves one determined son-of-a- gun to detect his heart out whenever he feels like it...ME!

I've never been much for computer simulations. Like statistics, they can be altered to produce whatever results you want. It's all in what's inputted to get out whatever it is you want to see.

I'd say a quarter at 1" should ring loud and clear on even the cheapest of machines. I'd agree with Greydigger. Total coverage in 8 hours and luck being with you and figuring that quarter is random and wont be in the very last square foot you detect...about 4 hours. And that is based on IF your coil didnt miss it because you didnt have enough overlap of your swing. That's why I can't see a place EVER being hunted out. And like Jeff pointed out...all the variables..is that quarter laying flat or on it's edge?

But I bet your arm would be tired as heck from swinging a 12" coil for so long. So...take that into account...maybe a couple days to find that coin.
Al

 

[watercolor]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

1-hour and 47-minutes 57-minutes. . .

(I hope one of the 24,000+ TNet members doesn't skew the results by finding it before you do )

Does sound interesting though. . . Good Luck!
watercolor

 

[WV Hillbilly]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

Interesting concept even if it can't be applied to real world conditions . In real life I don't have any
idea how long it might take to find the coin . I , like others , have hunted behind myself & found shal-
low coins enough times to know that no matter how many times you hunt the same area , there's still
some you miss . The more you find , the less there is but I don't think you ever get them all .
How long did your simulation say it would take ? HH

 

[ziphius]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

OK, thanks to everyone for playing! No trick question here, just a simulation assuming the parameters I gave. The average time required to find the single target in the 100x100 field is 9.4 hours. One person on another forum answered 8.33 hours, which would be the amount of time it would take if you could search the field with 100% efficiency. That is, search with no overlap of your sweeps and each square foot is searched only once. The random search element and lack of search precision adds another hour to the search. Or a 12% inefficiency over 'perfect searching', which isn't bad. The simulation was done about 100 times and while the average was 9.4 hours, some searchers found the Barber in 11 minutes, while it took others up to 57 hours. Hope that was fun for everyone.

 

[stefen]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

Asking 'How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?' is like asking how long does it take to eat an elephant when you have only one spoon

 

[erikk]

Re: How long does it take to "hunt out" a site?

NEVER