Thanks Jeff, really appreciate your reply.
I was using the 11 inch black FMF coil on the Deus 2.
If the ground you were hunting was really mineralized, a smaller coil might be more effective and cause less noise from the ground itself. Also on mineralized ground you have to swing a bit slower and have excellent coil control. Long pendulum type swings or swings that are not parallel to the ground can create audible coil responses just from the ground itself which is another reason to consider a smaller, easier to swing coil.
I always carry some test targets with me when I am detecting on mineralized ground I am unfamiliar with or using a new detector. Hopefully those targets have conductivities that are similar to what I am after at the site. I just bury them at various shallow depths and see how the ground itself affects them. You may find that smaller non ferrous targets and even small coins have abnormal target IDs and partial to completely ferrous responses very quickly at shallower depths than normal
The ground was mostly rocky and mineralized, and in some places it was changing pretty fast when I moved from one area to another.
Oman has some of the most complex geology on planet earth. The areas with exposed mantle rocks like the serpentine ophiolites there will be a real challenge with a hot running VLF detector like Deus 2. Mineralized ground whether it is from salt, natural iron or volcanic rock, is not your friend. Not only can it change quickly which impacts ground balance, it can also be a detectable target, even small particles of it. If there are hot/cold rocks present or natural iron pebbles, they will have slightly different audio responses and target ID patterns than non ferrous targets. Learning the audio tells for those ground targets is important.
To be honest I didnt write down the exact Fe3O4 reading or the ground balance numbers, so I dont want to give wrong numbers. Next time I will pay more attention to this.
No problem. Just realize that on ground with high mineralization, Deus 2 will be noisy and harder to stabilize. Deus 2's ground balance numbers also include one third decimal increments. On mineralized soil, ground balance being off by .33 will cause more extraneous noise. You may have to quickly ground balance after every target or use tracking ground balance. However, using tracking ground balance on smaller sub gram targets can also cause issues like missing smaller targets if they get tracked out or if the tracking function can't keep up with the changing ground.
The Fe3O4 meter on Deus 2 is a bar graph with no numerical values.
Also, always noise cancel your Deus 2 on mineralized ground. Even small amounts of EMI can make an already noisy Deus 2 from ground mineralization even harder to deal with.
I was mainly looking for smaller targets, and what I noticed is some weak signals was sounding different depending on the sweep direction and also after moving into another patch of ground.
Were you gold prospecting or were you looking for smaller than coin sized man made objects with higher conductivity than most gold objects? Targets with lower conductivity will be affected more quickly by higher iron mineralization.
In mineralized ground, it is very normal for smaller legitimate targets to have changes in their responses when changing sweep directions if they are nearing their edge of detection. Also, the ground itself and smaller hot/cold rocks can be detected easily by Deus 2 and other VLF detectors.
I often detect in mineralized areas where a normal coin sized non-ferrous target will have ferrous and non ferrous responses even at much shallower depths than on milder ground. Smaller non ferrous targets are affected even more.
I also dont remember the exact program settings I was using all the time because I changed few things during the session.
Programs like the General program and the Goldfield program have soil subtraction features built into them. That soil subtraction is helpful on soil with higher mineralization from salt, fertilizers and magnetite and should be used first on mineralized ground. If the General program is having difficulty being stabilized, using other programs with no soil subtraction may be even more challenging.
Mostly I want to understand how you would normally setup the Deus 2 in this type of rocky mineralized ground, specially ground balance, reactivity, sensitivity and frequency.
After you decide on a search program, you can adjust the other features you mentioned. In general, ground and rocks that are mineralized from natural iron particles like magnetite, hematite and maghemite will have ground balance numbers from 80 to the upper 90s if little or no salt is present. It is important to use one of the FMF Multi programs like General with soil subtraction, running at 40 kHz max frequency as a baseline. Lower sensitivity to 90 or less to get it more stable. Keep reactivity from 2 to 3. If the mineralization is from iron, lower the Silencer to 0 and turn Bottle Cap reject OFF. Also make sure Notch is OFF. Otherwise, higher settings on those two features may completely mask non ferrous targets. Keep iron volume ON but lower the volume levels if needed for your sanity. Also keep Audio Response on 4 or a bit less. If you decide to use the Relic or Goldfield programs, ground balance frequently and keep Disc IAR as low as you can, like on 0 or 1.
Your main goal on iron mineralized ground is to get your Deus 2 stable but also still reactive to small non ferrous targets. Having iron filters on their lowest settings while allowing ferrous targets to still be audible is crucial to prevent partial or complete masking of non ferrous targets. That is a trade off and a challenge.
Thanks again for the help
