Specific Gravity and absence of beach targets....Explain...

[Newfiehunter]

Recently I've heard about a term...Specific Gravity...which means how an fast an item sinks or floats in water. Silver has a specific gravity of 10 while gold has a specific gravity of 19 while platinum has a 21 specific gravity. If it is less than 0, it means it will float...

Now I know this is a little unrelated..but how long does it take for a gold ring or silver ring to sink..in sand on a beach that would be out of reach of a detector? For example a if a mans 14kt wedding band is dropped near the water on a beach last summer, how long will it take for it to be out of a detectors range? A month, 6 months, a year? There must be many factors involved....wave action on the shore, storms, heavy foot traffic, density of the sand etc.... Are the majority of the rings you find on the beach freshly dropped? Just curious...

The reason why I am asking this question is because I tried a beach hunt today for the first time in awhile, hoping to find some jewelry. My detector was fine and it was running in all metal mode. The beach is quite popular in the summer with very few, if any metal detector users here. However there has been no usage of the beach after all winter. What perplexed me was the absence of targets, even junk targets like bottle caps and pulltabs especially as I approached the ocean. The very few targets on the beach that were found were closer to land. Targets such as bottle caps and some coins that were found really deep about 7 inches or more which led me to believe the targets sank deeply in the sand in a short period of time. The deep coins were recent also. So can wave action from storms during the winter take targets out to sea from the land or bury the targets quickly? This is a question for all of the seasoned beach hunters who can explain this phenomenon. I'm baffled.

 

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[nickmarch]

I am familiar with specific gravity as it applies to gold prospecting. The same should apply to jewelry but detecting and prospecting are two different ground conditions. (unless you are prospecting on a beach)

For the most part gold, the larger nuggets will be found on bedrock below the sands and gravel. It's taken thousands of years to get there. In the sand and/or the surf and/or deeper there is constant motion in multiple directions. A lot of different things can happen.

On sand without water it would take a long time to go deep if ever on it's own. In my area they rake the beach daily with large tractors. A certain % gets picked up by the rakes and surely the weight of the tractor would push certain items such as rings deeper if run over by the tires but not so deep that the item should not be detected.

The action of a wave could take items out to sea and/or push items from the sea to shore. It depends on the action of the waves, winds, tide ect.

I haven't detected yet but I have prospected. I'm waiting for my first detector now. I may be wrong about the above info? Anyone?

 

[seeker41]

like you said, lots of factors / variables involved!! in my opinion your time frame of "a month, months, a year" are way off!! where im at east coast of florida i think we are talking about hours for an item to sink out of range if dropped in the water! i have been meaning to do an experiment and take a gold ring and tie heavy fishing line to it set it in the water and see how fast it sinks.
i have also heard that gold does not move a whole lot it just sinks where dropped. its very heavy, has almost no surface area to slow it down. compared to lake hunting in ohio ocean hunting here on the east coast of florida is incredibly hard!!!!!!

 

[Smoogle]

cracking topic, also would largely depend on the "specific gravity" of the material the goldies lay amongst. There is bedrock in every situation? I would doubt that the gold gets there uniformly, shells, rocks, compacted sand from predominant winds, the list is endless as to why a ring would not sink as well as why it may have - soft clean sand, wave action , weight from above etc etc etc - I only know as an informed noob (nearly finished my first year of hunting) I have won deep gold that had green crust - but also clean as a whistle at same depth, different location- different circumstances, different sand composition - each beach must surely have it's own set of factors? I'm trying hard to learn my locals - and it is paying.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I had a couple ask me to find their 12 year old sons silver ring he lost while in the water in front of their condo... I searched for over an hour with no luck, long story short I found it several hours later a hundred yards down the beach in the wet sand... It was engraved so no doubt it was their ring... Surf was rough that day... he was in what was waist deep water for him...

Couple swears he was in front of their condo when he lost it and they were in chairs watching him when he yelled his ring just came off, it was a Christmas gift to him from his parents and it was Jan 1st when I found it...

 

[bigscoop]

I have actually played with this on the beach here on the east coast. The biggest factor seems to be the volume of water that is getting moved between tides, the more volume the more current force and "ripping factor". When these volumes are high the more sand movement and more ripping which creates sort of a sucking element around anything that it sitting on the sand, so it sinks, or is drawn down much faster VS periods of low volume tide transitions. Stand in the ankle deep water during thse high volume periods and you can literally feel the sand being sucked from under your feet as they start to sink. The heavier the object, and especially true of objects with little surface area, such as rings, the faster they are sucked under. I once dropped a dime in a few inches of water during a high volume period and watched it disappear, checking for it with my detector as it sank. Twenty minutes later it was not only fairly deep but it had moved about a foot from where it had first started sinking. The softer the sand base the more that sand base moves around, always shifting, and so heavier, small surface items like gold rings, just keep right on sinking until they reach a hard pan (usually the grey sand). The closer you can hunt to that grey sand the better your chance of finding these heavier targets.

Learn how to read a tide chart...it's a must...because tide charts can tell you how much water volume is being moved between tides. The last few days on the east coast have seen strong winds and the tides are moving a lot of volume right now, so the wind has provided even more water volume and added force. As a result a lot of "green and red" items are showing up only a few inches down. There is a lot of sand moving about, so much that deeper targets are getting exposed and relocated. Great time to be on the beach! Hope this helps!

PS: Low volume periods bring in a lot of gradual sand coverage, and with a direct wind/breeze it brings in even more sand coverage.

 

[Newfiehunter]

So I assume then that the majority of the gold and silver rings you find on ocean beaches then are recent losses rather than over a long period of time?...Guess that would explain the mystery....All of your input was very insightful and very interesting...Thanks. Your knowledge was appreciated.

 

[TORRERO]

I have hunted many beaches over the years and I have to believe that most items dropped in the wet sand where water and
tides affect them, do not stay close to the top for very long....
Not sure if the items sink, or rather the water wave action causes a lot of sand to accumulate on top of the item, real fast.
Yes, I have seen where my feet sink fast in swirling surf water... been there done that.... But I am 250 pounds of HE MAN !
and a gold ring may only weigh 3 or 4 grams .....
By the winter time, after so many months, you not only have so many others who may have been hunting there, you also have had countless tide changes and currents and time for the items to be covered and sink....
But I also think there are other beaches that simply do not change so much such a beach like Daytona beach where the sand is very packed and even in the tide changes the sand does not move much...
I don't know, but this seems to me more likely than a ring sinking 20 inches in five minutes in water because of "Specific Gravity"

 

[bigscoop]

I have hunted many beaches over the years and I have to believe that most items dropped in the wet sand where water and
tides affect them, do not stay close to the top for very long....
Not sure if the items sink, or rather the water wave action causes a lot of sand to accumulate on top of the item, real fast.
Yes, I have seen where my feet sink fast in swirling surf water... been there done that.... But I am 250 pounds of HE MAN !
and a gold ring may only weigh 3 or 4 grams .....
By the winter time, after so many months, you not only have so many others who may have been hunting there, you also have had countless tide changes and currents and time for the items to be covered and sink....
But I also think there are other beaches that simply do not change so much such a beach like Daytona beach where the sand is very packed and even in the tide changes the sand does not move much...
I don't know, but this seems to me more likely than a ring sinking 20 inches in five minutes in water because of "Specific Gravity"

I hunted New Smyrna yesterday and even though it didn't appear to be all that disturbed, i.e., no vertical cuts etc., I was finding a lot of greenies on top of the hard sandy slopes. The closer I worked toward the low tide line the softer the sand became, even several feet above the usual troughs. This sand was being pushed in but the returning rips had been dragging it back out and piling it up along the way, a lot of coins that had been buried for a while were left behind scattered about above this softer sand buildup. I found some real nice gold and many coins above this softer sand, and most of them were just a couple of inches deep, but almost nothing in the softer buildup, and the hits noticeably diminished the closer I moved towards that softer buildup. Everything was concentrated in a band from the high tide waterline to about 20 - 30 feet above this lower beach, softer sand buildup. I use an Excal with a WOT and I can get pretty deep, and this softer sand buildup yielded very few hits at all. Whenever there's an increase in turbulence and/or strong cross currents, "it's time to be on the beach!" It may not always look like it, but when these conditions exist, a great deal of the time a lot sand and items are being redistributed.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Torrero, your wrong about daytona it changes a lot, hunting it often i watch the sandline on the pilings and steps it's çhanges are measured in feet as in 2-4 feet.

In 2008 we had a sub tropical storm hit dayrona and stripped over 3 feet ofsand off beach, it brought up original seawall of palm tree and original pier, there were targets every where, hundreds of gold rings were recovered just the day i was there, silver coins were everywhere.

I have tied gold ring to a fishing line at waters edge and it sank quickly. Gold is going to continue to sink till it hits something to stop it, usually a shell base or clay or some kind of trash. Heavy wave action will pick up and move targets as waves move sand and rip tides dig huge holes

 

[nickmarch]

I'm sure nothing is written in stone. There are too many factors involved. Wind velocity, wind direction, surf, water depth, high/low tides, ect.

Below are three screen shots from google earth of a rip current that I am going to hunt. The markers are in the same location in the pics. The rip is just over 300 yards long.

You can see that the rip sucked out a large deep chunk of sand. Right now you can't see where the rip was at. It's covered with sand again and looks like the rest of the beach. Waves suck the sand and treasures out at times and at other times the waves push the sand and treasures in. No matter how deep eventually everything moves.

 

[bigscoop]

A simple test you can do at home on smooth concrete...

Lay different items in a row several inches a part, grab the garden hose and gradually increase the pressure as you pass the spray in front of these items. Watch how they move, and which ones move more easily, and why? Now line them up again but only this time pile a row of sand in front of them. Sounds silly, I know, but with only a little pressure you will start seeing sand forming on the inside of the heavy rings. The point? Sand will be under the coins because they are flat, more surface area. Sand will be forming on the inside of the rings because there is hardly any surface area. Now imagine this same scenario on a beach with several feet of soft, slowly shifting sand and water motion.......which of your items is going to sink faster? Going a step further, using your row of items again, pile the sand on top of these items and apply a light spray/wash....not much happens, just some sand is moved. But if you were to hit your row of items with a much stronger spray those items will be uncovered in a hurry and pushed along the concrete from the force of the pounding water. Not an perfect example, but gives you the general idea of how items get hidden and then moved about in the sand, and why.

 

[hamiddetecting]

The gold is there. I wish you luck for ALL hunters

 

[biggmike]

When I return a ring that I find I always ask when they lost it and where. I returned a ring last year and the guy told me that he lost it in knee deep water 3 weeks earlier. (about 12 grams 14K) I found it in shallow water about 2 scoops down. I'm guessing 8-10 inches. I found and returned a stainless wedding ring ( about 10 grams) that was deep, maybe 12" and the guy said he lost it about a year earlier within a block and about the same depth that he said he lost it. I found one a couple years ago (about 10 grams 10K) that was approximately in the same spot the girl lost it 4 years earlier. I think the makeup of the sea floor has a LOT to do with it and I also think that stuff sinks and moves around a lot less then most people think. All of these finds mentioned were chunks of gold and a big stainless. A smaller or lighter ring would move more and sink slower I assume.

 

[donlor]

as i mainly detect saltwater beaches i have read a good deal about this over the years. here is the essence of what i have read - gold rings can get bellow detector range at amazingly fast times.
some people have posted actual experiments with doing this.
yes, variables affect this sinkage - how much wave action was involved & how deep the sand was.
the bottom line is this - yes, gold (and heavier metals) can sink at distressingly fast rates.
one of your first priorities if detecting a beach you will detect often is in knowing your beach.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

When I buried the gold ring in less than 30 mins it was over 12 inches deep at the water line on a calm day....

When the sub-tropical storm hit daytona in 2008 a hole had been dug by a rip current., there were gold rings everywhere in that 120 foot long 30ft wide hole, it had taken the sand down close to the clay base, chunks of clay were in our scoops when we tried to recover the targets......We were pulling ups rings dated in the 20s, 30s and 40s as well as U.S. Naval Air Force rings and recent years, no navy airforce since WWII...

I am a firm believer the local beaches are covered in gold, gold is just bured to deep to get to till storms, wind or surf action open up the treasure vault for a short time...

 

[bigscoop]

When I buried the gold ring in less than 30 mins it was over 12 inches deep at the water line on a calm day....

When the sub-tropical storm hit daytona in 2008 a hole had been dug by a rip current., there were gold rings everywhere in that 120 foot long 30ft wide hole, it had taken the sand down close to the clay base, chunks of clay were in our scoops when we tried to recover the targets......We were pulling ups rings dated in the 20s, 30s and 40s as well as U.S. Naval Air Force rings and recent years, no navy airforce since WWII...

I am a firm believer the local beaches are covered in gold, gold is just bured to deep to get to till storms, wind or surf action open up the treasure vault for a short time...

"That old man" that inspired me in the 80's, six cigar boxes crammed full of gold stuff...even a few old Spanish gold coins, he use to say, "You could fill a couple moving vans with the gold that's under the beach as far as your eyes can see both ways, maybe several vans, if you could just get to it all."

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

"That old man" that inspired me in the 80's, six cigar boxes crammed full of gold stuff...even a few old Spanish gold coins, he use to say, "You could fill a couple moving vans with the gold that's under the beach as far as your eyes can see both ways, maybe several vans, if you could just get to it all."

I strongly believe he is correct..... How else could you explain the old rings we find, when they are dated in the 20s, means they had to be born in the early part of 1900 to have a ring with date of 1920s.... They have long since passed....

 

[bigscoop]

From Robert Weller, of the 1715 Spanish Fleet fame. He enters the following in regards to the wealth that has been found on the beaches near the wreck of the Capitana; "When a northeaster strikes this part of the coast, it cuts into the berm and, when the hardpan is uncovered, it is usually littered with Spanish gold coins....and countless artifacts." then later he adds, "In 1984 a northeaster hit the coast and cut away the beach on Thanksgiving Day. It was a Weekend of Thanksgiving for many metal detecting beachcombers. They recovered over 2000 silver coins, at least sixteen gold coins, and several pieces of gold jewelry with emeralds. A small cannon and a number of dead-eyes were also recovered." And these are just the items Weller and his people knew about.

Notice the "weekend" is in bold, indicating that the rich pickings only lasted for just a few days before it was covered too deeply again. Also note that even a small cannon, an extremely heavy item, was suddenly within reach of beach hunters. It is quite common for these same wreck areas to be covered over with "several feet" of sand that has to be routinely removed over and over again.

And there's no way to know how many pieces of modern jewelry were found but it was probably just as profound.

 

[Newfiehunter]

I certainly have acquired much knowledge with regards to beach hunting since posting this thread....Will have to certainly make an investment in an underwater machine..The question is now..which one? In the summer, it is too hot to go coin hunting at old homesteads that is usually overgrown and really don't want to take a chance dropping a land unit in the ocean. When I see some of the beautiful rings that you guys post on here...it does make me feel I should expand my horizons!! All of your advice and opinions will certainly be used when I try beach hunting again. Thanks....