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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[GoDeep]

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

First, I never stated that soil that becomes water saturated is the ONLY reason coins sink through soil, I said it was one of many reasons and have provided multiple other examples of other contributing factors that make objects sink in soil.

Second, you are claiming here and now that deposition isn't the only reason, you now say "deposition plus all those other things". My question, what do you define as "all those other things".

Third, are you still claiming that coins (or any metal objects for that matter as soil doesn't discriminate) will not sink?

 

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[GoDeep]

Example #5 in support of the claim that objects do sink in soil:

Gravestones are a great example to see the effects of objects sinking into the ground. The picture below really illustrates this if you look at the leaning gravestone, one side has clearly sunk several inches lower then the other. Deposition or any other method would not cause this to lean. I suppose a lawn mower could have hit it, but if that's your argument, i'll gladly post up countless other photos of gravestones sinking in similar manner.

 

[GoDeep]

I guess all the associated coins from those eras (roman era) must be modern as well. If they sink as you proclaim they must be dozens of feet deep.

Example #6 Soil layering

The above quote is a good example of you taking my statement that coins sink in soil and then attaching (false) meanings and conclusions to it and illustrates your misunderstanding of soil and my claims.

Soil is not dozens of feet deep, in fact, if you do a quick google search, average soil (cultivatable soil) depth the world over is only a foot or less deep. Coins will only sink until they encounter a median that is impermeable to them, be it hard clay, gravel beds, bedrock etc. They do not sink to infinity or "dozens" of feet as you claim and to be clear I NEVER claimed!

This picture is great because you can clearly see the rich darker top soil layer that is approx. 8" deep, after that we start transitioning into denser rockier soils, eventually you'll hit all out gravel beds and then bedrock:

 

[GoDeep]

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

I'd agree with that. Sometimes though it can be self fulfilling as in my soil, my AT PRO would only reliably identify a dime to 6" and a quarter to 7" give or take:-)

My soil picture above though illustrates why coins only hit a certain depth. Once they get past the softer, richer topsoil, they slowdown significantly or completely stop depending on what underlying material they hit.

 

[RustyGold]

I do believe that coins and rings migrate through the sand at the beach. It’s an example of a lateral sink maybe.
I lost my wedding ring in the garden for two years and it was 3” down in the soil. It had slipped off my finger at the base of a Fortnight Lily while retrieving an arrow.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Example #6 Soil layering

........

 

[GoDeep]

I do believe that coins and rings migrate through the sand at the beach. It’s an example of a lateral sink maybe.
I lost my wedding ring in the garden for two years and it was 3” down in the soil. It had slipped off my finger at the base of a Fortnight Lily while retrieving an arrow.

Was your ring Gold or other heavy metal? At that rate, assuming it didn't hit different density soil, that baby would be 6-8" deep in 4-5 years!

I don't live near the beach, but I've heard beach hunters say that if they throw a gold ring right at the edge of the surf in the wetsand, you can watch it sink! Sand, surf and gold is an extreme example, but it illustrates what happens on a slower scale in soil.

 

[GoDeep]

I guess nature forgot to sink those roman roads, still on the surface after 2000 years.

Example #7

This one is easy. Romans were master builders, they wouldn't have just built their roads on soft topsoil without preparation. This is one method they used of building roads: They "rammed tight"(compacted) down the soil and then laid down multiple layers of rock, gravel, lime and concrete to spread out the load and create a solid platform for the road to lie upon (road construction still uses a similar method) Remember, greater surface areas combats sinkage in soil. A quick test you can do at home to demonstrate this is find a mud hole, step in it, you will sink in to your ankles or even knees, now take a 4x8 sheet of plywood and lay it on the mud, now step on the plywood, whola!



And another roman road diagram:

 

[Nick79]

Spotted on the surface while fishing a creek. Still have not got one with my detector lol

 

[GoDeep]

Spotted on the surface while fishing a creek. Still have not got one with my detector lol View attachment 1587975

Nice score! More then I've found, I've only been out twice this year with my Fisher CZ and all I found was that I don't like not finding anything significant!

 

[Sandancer]

12”....that’s deep. What kind of machine did you hit that one with?

It was a Whites Beach Hunter ID with the 12" coil at the edge of a cranberry bog.

 

[RustyGold]

Was your ring Gold or other heavy metal? At that rate, assuming it didn't hit different density soil, that baby would be 6-8" deep in 4-5 years!

I don't live near the beach, but I've heard beach hunters say that if they throw a gold ring right at the edge of the surf in the wetsand, you can watch it sink! Sand, surf and gold is an extreme example, but it illustrates what happens on a slower scale in soil.

Yes, it was a large gold band.

 

[digger460]

View attachment 1587938

 

[wingmaster]

Coins will get pushed deeper if there's a lot of foot traffic over them, like at parks when the ground is wet. When you step on wet ground you will push the wet soil down and any coin under it, the ground will spring back but the coin doesn't. When I detect area's that haven't had any traffic over it I find most coins are at 6" deep at the most, I found an 1876 quarter at about 2" and a couple were at the surface. There can be other reasons for surface finds though like squirrels, moles, ect. digging them up to surface level and even roots pushing them up, but roots could also push them down as well. HH

 

[BeenFishin]

There are way too many variables for you two to be wasting the op's time on whether things sink or not. On AVERAGE there is 1/16th of ground accumulation per year. ( I dont remember where i found this but i remember going through this already by myself last year) Obviously having a higher accumulation on lower areas and a lesser accumulation on higher areas. So many variables affect this though and the 1/16" accumulation is an AVERAGE. Yes, things sink more when the ground is more saturated or just loose soil. But as far as ground accumulation id think its heavily variable based on location. If you want to get a good gauge on how much accumulation there is around you....look for some old walkways in front of old houses and you can easily see that the ground bulges up over the walkway a good amount. Considering the home owners made the walkway when the ground was at the same level as the walkway...you can see the ground accumulation. Anyone wanna argue more?



Theres one spot on one day where i dug (6) 10" dimes in a super dry front yard. I was using my whites MXT with the detech ultimate 13" coil.

 

[beep1971]

Most of my permissions are old pasture grounds, many have never seen a plough.
Modern coins from the last hundred years, 2-6 inch deep.
1700's -late 1800's 5-8inch.
The older silver coins are small thin hammered types and there difficult to find on unworked ground, mostly 6inch plus, i've found a number of them at the 8 inch mark, but very desperate scratchy signals.
There's always the exceptions to the rules though, i've dug 10inch+ deep 1800's milled silver and copper.
I'll also add that my soil is quite mineralised, most of the deep coins came from the Etrac and Signum, most of the other machines i've used just couldn't get any decent depth.

 

[Stringtyer]

Wow. It looks like my simple question about a general sink rate caused a bit of a firestorm. That was certainly not my intent; I was just trying to understand a bit more about my new hobby.

I have to weigh in on the idea of objects (including coins) moving around in the soil column based on many factors including rainfall, soil type, temperature differentials across the day period and seasons, and natural movement of the soil for any myriad reasons. I'll support my argument by looking at the rocks that heave upward from my soil on a regular basis. I live in an area in which my soil is classed as sandy clay. It is fairly hard packed unless it rains.

Over the period of a year, rocks tend to percolate up based on temperature differentials and water content of the soil. That actually can be demonstrated with a jar and some soil. If, for example, you take a quart jar and fill it 2/3 - 3/4 full of soil with rocks and pebbles and gently shake it, the larger rocks will - over time - percolate to the top. I think that if natural objects (rocks) move in the soil column, coins could do the same thing. The interesting question may be, how do they start any possible migration. Perhaps that's where tilling and grading, soil deposition, etc. come into to play.

That said, I have found a few coins with relatively modern dates (>1980) at depths of 3 - 4 inches and a Ruger pistol that has likely been in the ground over 50 years at essentially the same depth but different soil types. Looks like I'm going to have to plant a coin garden and monitor depths over the next year. Way too much time on my hands.

 

[Normsel]

Density of the soil and moisture play a roll in coins sinking but the biggest factor is vibrations over time.. I have seen coins in the 1990's that are 8" deep in virgin soil. Mulch from mowing etc has very little to do with depth of a coin. It takes years of mowing to build up 1" of soil and then it is black top soil..