How deep is your silver?

[Timebandit]

Guys,
I was out for several hours today and broke a silver drought with a ‘46 Rosie at about 8” on a bouncy iffy signal on the Etrac. I hit a 12-45 once in my swings but mostly bounced with only a few 45’s. I dug it and new it was silver as soon as my pin pointer placed it in the center of the hole. Question... can you guys tell me the average depth of your silvers and what type of dirt your digging? I pulled this one at 8” in black soil but my usual silvers come in about 4”-6” and most of that is in clay under an Inch or 2 of topsoil.

 

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[Tpmetal]

No, they don't. Footings are deep enough to not suffer from frost heave. Again, the vast majority of all buildings are built on pure soil, no bedrock, yet these building haven't sunk in hundreds of years. Strange.... its as if the soil is actually compact enough to support the load, and NOT becoming liquid every time it rains.

What good would gravel do? It's denser than the soil, so it would sink, just like the building on top of it.... except none of it is really sinking

Funny how they had to come up with a complex system of drainage to prevent houses from sinking and sliding, isn't it? houses don't sink because they plan for it. and the ones which are poorly drained DO sink.

 

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[Jason in Enid]

No, I never made this claim. I never claimed "every time it rains" nor "the entirety becomes purely liquid mud" I claimed that in adding enough water, a soil may become saturated to the point of being, in effect, a liquid state. Mud was an example used to illustrate over saturation.



No, I never made this claim either. I never claimed the "Entirety of the ground becomes liquid" nor "everything sinks everytime it rains" Again, see my previous posts.



And again, I NEVER made the claim that a "simple rain" turns the ground to "pure liquid" through which "Everything more dense sinks to bedrock".

To bolster your argument, you literally made up and attributed to me several sweeping statements and words and incorrectly paraphrased ALL of my arguments.

My arguments were clear, used real world examples and even provided links and quotes.

If you want to bolster your argument, provide the science(quotes, links, geology) behind why a coin will not sink in soil. Provide evidence that refutes my claim that heavily saturated soil can't turn to mud. Provide evidence to your claim as to why coins only get deeper due to deposits on top of them, rather then any sinking of the coin.

This will give you a strong argument, but misstating what others have said or claimed, only makes your argument look weaker.

Hahaha! You're still at this?! Geeze, go back and read your own posts. You claimed coins sink because soil is a liquid because of rain. Your words. Too bad you can't defend your original statements. You are also the one who tried to push the argument off on the tangent of slurry tests and bedrock gravel and then got indignant when I showed that those have nothing to do with the argument at hand vis-a-vis COINS DONT SINK.

 

[GoDeep]

You claimed coins sink because soil is a liquid because of rain.

Again, mis-representing what I said. That was one of many reasons I used, I also spoke about freezing, thawing, soil density, heat, cold, frost, insects, vegetation, wind, density of the object etc.

Now come at me with science behind why a coin will not sink in soil when exposed to heat, rain, freeze/thaw cycles, insects, decomposing roots etc...then you will have my ear.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Again, mis-representing what I said. That was one of many reasons I used, I also spoke about freezing, thawing, soil density, heat, cold, frost, insects, vegetation, wind, density of the object etc.

Now come at me with science behind why a coin will not sink in soil when exposed to heat, rain, freeze/thaw cycles, insects, decomposing roots etc...then you will have my ear.

Already talked about those.... but FYI, none of those make a coin SINK. Dont believe me, test it yourself. Go dig a nice chunk of ground from your yard and put it in a jar. Heck do that and fill many jars. Drop a coin on top of each jar of dirt. Put a jar in your closet, put one in the garden, put them everywhere for all kinds of conditions. Just don't touch them. Now go back and look at them year, after year, after year.... those coins will ALWAYS be on top unless there is grass growing in it, in which the grass will bury it.... just like I said originally.

Funny man, asking for "science" when you can't comprehend the science thats in front of you.

 

[GoDeep]

Already talked about those.... but FYI, none of those make a coin SINK. Dont believe me, test it yourself. Go dig a nice chunk of ground from your yard and put it in a jar. Heck do that and fill many jars. Drop a coin on top of each jar of dirt. Put a jar in your closet, put one in the garden, put them everywhere for all kinds of conditions. Just don't touch them. Now go back and look at them year, after year, after year.... those coins will ALWAYS be on top unless there is grass growing in it, in which the grass will bury it.... just like I said originally.

Funny man, asking for "science" when you can't comprehend the science thats in front of you.

Putting them in a Jar won't work. A jar confines and supports the soil. A jar also lacks vegetation, insects, microscopic life, bacteria, decaying roots etc. A jar minimizes the effects of freezing, thawing and rain as it confines and supports the soil,....

... That is until the Jar BREAKS due to the water in it freezing and expanding, which is exactly what it does to soil, which is exactly one of the points i'm tying to convey, soil moves, expands, contracts, things slowly sift though it over time. That is fact based science. Though you can't easily see it, soil is moving. It is moving due to cold, heat, insects, decaying roots, etc. It is heaving, cracking, freezing, thawing, getting wet, drying out. This slowly sifts a heavier dense object, such as a coin through them.

 

[GoDeep]

Funny man, asking for "science" when you can't comprehend the science thats in front of you.

Excuse me? I see claims, not science. And then I see you mainly attacking and misrepresenting my claims. You want science. I will give you several real world testable, observable, repeatable(science defined!) examples of things that sink in soil. Give me time, i'm working today so i'll space them out. If you have some science to support your claims, i'd love to see it.

Example #1:

Lets start with the common household porch. Ever notice old house porches almost always are sagging when often the house is not? This goes back to our debate about why footings and foundations need to be below soil level. If possible, on gravel or bedrock will provide even better support.

Porches often do not share the same foundation as the house. Climb under any old turn of the century house and you'll see that the porch supports are usually just sitting on a big rock or a couple of stacked rocks just sitting on the ground, under each corner of the porch and a few across the front. Why did the porch sink? Vegetation didn't build up on top of it. It sank because the rocks, with the combined weight of the porch, are slowly sinking into the soil. Water, freezing, thawing, heaving, cleaving, expanding, insects etc slowly allow those big support rocks to sink and as such, your porch sinks. Imagine, several rocks, often a good 2 feet square each, sink under the relative light weight of what they are supporting. Remember, the more surface area something has, the harder it is to sink. Coins have very little surface area, but great weight and density relatively speaking compared to many types of rocks. (gold being one of the fastest sinkers, gold is almost never found in soil, it has almost always worked its way down to gravel or bedrock due to its extreme relative weight and density)

 

[GoDeep]

Example #2. First, I want to clarify when I make the claim that coins can and do sink in soil (more or less depending on soil composition and environment), that I readily accept that coins also gain "depth" by material being deposited on top of them (leaves, grass, soil blowing over them etc).

Example 2 is an extreme example used only to illustrate the expansion and contraction of soil. But it illustrates that soil does develop cracks, coins slowly settle in these cracks, lower and lower. A coin thrown in these extreme soils could work their way several inches deep in just a few years with nothing being deposited on top of them! Freezing and thawing is one way the soil expands and then contracts. Heating up is another way and lastly, another way is alternating between extreme moisture to extreme dryness. This is more pronounced in colder climates and arid climates and often can't be seen due to ground cover, but it is occurring, right under your feet.

 

[Tpmetal]

Example 2. First, I want to clarify when I make the claim that coins can and do sink in soil (more or less depending on soil composition), that I readily accept that coins also gain "depth" by material being deposited on top of them (leaves, grass, soil blowing over them etc).

Example 2 is an extreme example used only to illustrate the expansion and contraction of soil. But it illustrates that soil does develop cracks, coins slowly settle in these cracks, lower and lower. Freezing and thawing is one way the soil expands and then contracts. Heating up is another way and lastly, another way is alternating between extreme moisture to extreme dryness. This is more pronounced in colder climates and arid climates and often can't be seen due to ground cover, but it is occurring, right under your feet.

View attachment 1587852

At this point I would just quit. Trying to explain this to him is like

 

[Jason in Enid]

At this point I would just quit. Trying to explain this to him is like

Cant explain away truth. That all has ZERO to do with COINS SINKING.

BTW - that beautiful picture of the collapsed porch on the old church has ZERO to do with sinking. I guarantee that nothing there sank. The supports rotted. Happens on all over every town in 'merica.

You all are a hoot.... googling to find example and reasons you could possibly be correct. Grabbing on to the thinnest shred of anything to support your argument. Slurry tests, collapsed buildings, cracked ground.... nice tries, but nothing about any of those will make a coin SINK.

I watered my back yard for 5 hours last night. My tree didn't sink. My shed didn't collapse into a mud puddle. My picnic table didn't even budge! All those things have a LOT of weight on very little contact points. Surely something would have sunk... I mean since you claim a coin can sink.

 

[GoDeep]

Cant explain away truth. That all has ZERO to do with COINS SINKING.

BTW - that beautiful picture of the collapsed porch on the old church has ZERO to do with sinking. I guarantee that nothing there sank. The supports rotted. Happens on all over every town in 'merica.

You all are a hoot.... googling to find example and reasons you could possibly be correct. Grabbing on to the thinnest shred of anything to support your argument. Slurry tests, collapsed buildings, cracked ground.... nice tries, but nothing about any of those will make a coin SINK.

I watered my back yard for 5 hours last night. My tree didn't sink. My shed didn't collapse into a mud puddle. My picnic table didn't even budge! All those things have a LOT of weight on very little contact points. Surely something would have sunk... I mean since you claim a coin can sink.

Are you being purposely obtuse? Watering your lawn isn't going to make anything sink away before your eyes! It takes hundreds of years of freezing, thawing, wet, dry, warm, decaying roots, insects, worms etc etc. I don't deal in claims, i'm providing evidence. Testable, observable, repeatable.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Are you being purposely obtuse? Watering your lawn isn't going to make anything sink away before your eyes! It takes hundreds of years of freezing, thawing, wet, dry, warm, decaying roots, insects, worms etc etc. I don't deal in claims, i'm providing evidence. Testable, observable, repeatable.

Hahaha! So you step further and further away from your original claim. Now you wont even use the word "sink" any more, and now you are admitting to it being a process involving plants, and roots, and now taking hundreds of years. Glad to see you are almost all the way around my my original posts.

 

[Tpmetal]

Cant explain away truth. That all has ZERO to do with COINS SINKING.

BTW - that beautiful picture of the collapsed porch on the old church has ZERO to do with sinking. I guarantee that nothing there sank. The supports rotted. Happens on all over every town in 'merica.

You all are a hoot.... googling to find example and reasons you could possibly be correct. Grabbing on to the thinnest shred of anything to support your argument. Slurry tests, collapsed buildings, cracked ground.... nice tries, but nothing about any of those will make a coin SINK.

I watered my back yard for 5 hours last night. My tree didn't sink. My shed didn't collapse into a mud puddle. My picnic table didn't even budge! All those things have a LOT of weight on very little contact points. Surely something would have sunk... I mean since you claim a coin can sink.

Frost heaving alone disproves your argument. All the spring fed swampy areas around cellars I have detected also disprove it. All objects in the dry area are more shallow than the wet area, and this happens at every single place I've hunted like that. Yes you are right that stuff gets covered up as well, from decaying matter to run off from a hill covering stuff up. But there is plenty effect of water as well, be it liquid or frozen. Look at the road that was built through alaska in ww2. They had constant problems of sinking bulldozers from melted permafrost. Look at any river or beach where a quicksand like media forms. These are extreme examples but they should help you understand what happens over a very long time. Same reasons they account for flexibility of pipes when buried underground. same reason you dig footers on a house. Same reason the leaning tower of Pisa is leaning. Watering your lawn for 5 hours one time is nothing, see what happens to your yard after 5 or 6 days of solid rain, I guarantee stuff sinks. Then see what 100 years of weather does, perspective is everything here. Coins do indeed move up and down in the soil.

Now you can believe what you want and thats fine. But this is what I believe and my evidence backs up my beliefs. Just because you can't comprehend how it works doesn't make it wrong.
Now that I let myself get sucked in, I said my two bits and will refrain from trying to change your mind anymore. No hard feelings.

 

[GoDeep]

Hahaha! So you step further and further away from your original claim. Now you wont even use the word "sink" any more, and now you are admitting to it being a process involving plants, and roots, and now taking hundreds of years. Glad to see you are almost all the way around my my original posts.

Again you are falsely making claims and assertions I never made.

You said I won't use the word "sink" anymore? , go up exactly THREE posts and I use the word SINK! Then go to my post before that and I again use the word "Sink".

NEVER did i back away from my claim. NEVER did I not say there wasn't plants, insects, heat, freezing, rotting, roots. I've repeatedly stated those are involved, over and over. Nor did I say sinking happens instantly!

You are simply making things up that I never said to debunk my claims while providing nothing to prove your claim that coins don't or can't sink!

 

[GoDeep]

Example #3 Observable, repeatable, testable (science).

Heres an awesome picture that illustrates sinking, rather then material building up over or around it. Reference the tree roots and surrounding ground, no significant buildup. The car simply has sunk! Top soil is soft and easily allows sinking!

Anyone who's ever found or dragged an old car, tractor, truck out of the back yard can attest, they SINK and sometimes this process can happen in just a few years! Once they hit the frame and body, the load spreads out over a larger surface dramatically slowing sink rate:

 

[GoDeep]

Example #4. Sinkage vs Buildup

Another good example of sinking rather then material buildup. It sinking unevenly indicates that it isn't just material buildup around the tires as this wouldn't cause the tractor to tilt.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Again you are falsely making claims and assertions I never made.

Well then, lets go back and see what you wrote......

I respectfully disagree. Soil very much takes on a fluid state, especially after a rain, it can be so saturated as to be equal parts water and soil.

You just said soil is a fluid because of rain

Buildings have deep footings, which often extend to bedrock or to gravel to prevent sinking or the soil is heavily compacted. A building built on just soil will sink, lean and have uneven floors. Also, soil very much becomes an effectual liquid state(I believe the technical term is plasticity), a good visual example is a landslide, wheareas the soil literally flows.

Here you try to change the terms by talking about building being built with footing to bedrock.... which is another falsehood.

Soil very much can effectively become a liquid state.

You AGAIN try to say that soil becomes a liquid

What good would gravel do you ask? .... Lighter structures can built upon gravel, heavier buildings, like an office building often go to bedrock if possible.

Now you're talking about building on gravel, another red hearing... and completely unrelated to COINS SINKING

...I'm curious, have you ever stepped in water saturated soil, did you not sink? Have you ever stepped in mud, did your foot not sink? Have you never witnessed a mudslide? Proof of soils non cohesiveness and apparent liquid state when subjected to water is all around us and observable and measurable.

Again you try to talk about soil becoming fluid because you have stepped into a mud puddle. I'm curious here, how did that mud puddle form? Oh yeah, RAIN. You are saying rain makes soil fluid. Solids sink in fluids, like all the buildings not build on bedrock you talked about (even though that was completely wrong)

Your point about my point about gravel is nonsensical. Gravel beds occur naturally or can be laid by a builder. Top soil is removed and a gravel bed laid in.

Again, soil is not a cohesive medium. It is fine grained, readily separates and can effectively become a liquid medium when subjected to enough water.

And not you refute the very thing you said about buildings being built with gravel in the footings. curios.

Heavier objects settle through soil over time. This is a fact. Denser, heavier metals settle deeper, fact.

Wow, no you just make up your own definitions of nature. I guess somebody better tell all the archaeologists in England that those 5000 year old iron age settlements are brand new because they are under only a few inches of soil. I guess nature forgot to sink those roman roads, still on the surface after 2000 years. I guess all the associated coins from those eras must be modern as well. If they sink as you proclaim they must be dozens of feet deep.

Yes, if you took a coin, placed it on dry soil, that is shielded from all wind, vibration, heat, cold, water, plant life, animal life etc (in a bubble so to speak) sure, it wouldn't sink. But that's not how soil in nature works.

Oh, you were so close.. almost had it!

Are you serious? Is this some sort of April fools? This is basic geology. There are thousands of articles and diagrams of soil layer composition (just google soil layers). Heavier objects settle through soil over time. This is a fact. Denser, heavier metals settle deeper, fact.

Again with sinking because of density. I guess theres not a single rocks on the surface of the ground anywhere. Those must have SURELY sunk over 100s of thousands of years!

Great point and to clarify, i'm not saying plant, leaves and soil matter depositing on top via wind, erosion, and the natural life cycle of plants don't contribute too to a coins depth, they both (settling as I've described and deposits on top as you've said). And yes to deep signals, those always get me excited!!!

Again, sooo close. Almost there!

Then you go back to finding google pics to try to assert your claim. Then talking about swamps? huh? Stick to the point! You are circling your own argument trying to find a foothold.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Frost heaving alone disproves your argument. All the spring fed swampy areas around cellars I have detected also disprove it. All objects in the dry area are more shallow than the wet area, and this happens at every single place I've hunted like that. Yes you are right that stuff gets covered up as well, from decaying matter to run off from a hill covering stuff up. But there is plenty effect of water as well, be it liquid or frozen. Look at the road that was built through alaska in ww2. They had constant problems of sinking bulldozers from melted permafrost. Look at any river or beach where a quicksand like media forms. These are extreme examples but they should help you understand what happens over a very long time. Same reasons they account for flexibility of pipes when buried underground. same reason you dig footers on a house. Same reason the leaning tower of Pisa is leaning. Watering your lawn for 5 hours one time is nothing, see what happens to your yard after 5 or 6 days of solid rain, I guarantee stuff sinks. Then see what 100 years of weather does, perspective is everything here. Coins do indeed move up and down in the soil.

Now you can believe what you want and thats fine. But this is what I believe and my evidence backs up my beliefs. Just because you can't comprehend how it works doesn't make it wrong.
Now that I let myself get sucked in, I said my two bits and will refrain from trying to change your mind anymore. No hard feelings.

My mistake, you mentioned swamps, not GD. Again though, you are not talking about turf soils. You are talking rare extremes... swamps, thawed permafrost. If you can explain how THOSE situation caused a 1920 penny to be 3 inches under the soil, I'll believe you.

 

[GoDeep]

Thank you fo the quotes, i'm not sure your point as nothing you quote above of mine is untrue(your interpretations or assumptions about them are often off base), nor do my words in anyway alter in anyway my assertion that coins do sink!

To simplify so we don't get off track, here are the claims you and I are making(if I misstated your claim, speak now):

Your claim: a coin placed on soil will not sink into/thru the dirt. That it gains its depth only by deposits on top of it (leaves, dead grass, blowing debris, erosion etc),not by sinking.

My claim: Coins will sink into/thru dirt.

Now, so far I have provided multiple examples of why a coin can sink in dirt (water, animals, worms, heat, cold, freezing, thawing etc etc)

I have provided multiple examples and pictures showing irrefutable evidence that objects do indeed sink in dirt. Coins aren't special. Dirt doesn't discriminate.

Now the onus is on you to provide your evidence of why coins don't sink in dirt.

For my part, I will continue to post up proof positive that objects of all types sink in soil.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Now the onus is on you to provide your evidence of why coins don't sink in dirt.

Nice try. It's not on me to disprove a negative. You made the assertion that coins sink because rain makes turf soil liquid. I said that was wrong. here we are now, with all your google pics trying to show anything sinking any amount.

And for the record, go back and re-read my posts on page 1. here, I'll make it easy for you:

There is no real answer to your question. First, if someones detector can only see a coin 4 inches deep in their soil, thats the deepest you are going to get as an answer. Next, a different detector may be capable of 12 inches in that same part of the country.

Now, to make it even more confusing, the "depth of silver" changes dramatically over very short distances. I have a site where silver and other coins lost as far back the founding of my town in 1893 have been 18" deep and there there could be more deeper still. Yet a few blocks away I recover silver and similar dates coins at all depths including sitting on the surface.

Plant growth, irrigation, fertilization, mowing practices, shade trees, freeze and thaw cycles and other factors all play a role in how deep targets get before we dig them.

I never said it was purely deposition. deposition plus all those other things, but NOT sinking because rain makes soil into a fluid.

 

[Rookster]

The average depth of coins found is said to be 6".