Sand movement

[Golden oaks]

I will be spending the Summer on the North Carolina coast. How & when the the sand on the beach move inward or out? My understanding is it is a seasonal movement with the sand washing out in the Autumn & back in during the Spring. Wouldn't the gold wash out while sinking and sink even more washing back in?

 

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[bigscoop]

Sand movement on the coast can even be a daily affair. But generally speaking you are correct in assessing that sand is removed in the fall/winter and returned in the spring/summer. But maybe of even greater importance, as I learned while living on the east coast of Florida, is that not all sections of beach are made the same. Some areas of the beach will be filled in with deep layers of soft sand, these quickly experiencing change during periods of rougher surf conditions. In essence all you will find here after some of this sand is removed is just more deep layers of soft sand.

On the other hand, there will also be sections of beach that are very dense and these are the sections I started to focus on as items lost here don't have a chance to keep sinking out of range. Find these areas and they can be consistently productive for this reason and when sand is removed in these areas they can be very productive. Gold is very dense and it is going to sink quickly when given the chance so try to find those popular beach areas where the sand is very dense and stay away from those areas of beach that are composed of deep layers of fine/soft sand. It will take some time to learn your beaches but the effort is worth it. Those areas of deep soft sand are strictly "very recent loss" hunts. Hope this helps.

 

[GatorBoy]

The prevailing wind and current in the summer is from the south and southeast so sand tends to build on the straight and southerly facing portions of the beach while some can even be stripped away with strong south winds on the north side of points.. just the opposite is true in the winter with the prevailing wind from the north and northeast.. Especially when the wind is blowing straight down the beach and the waves are hitting the beach at an angle.
Unless you're talking about thin gold chains Gold is much more dense than the sand and in my experience doesn't move that much the sand moves around it and out from under it so the sinking is more like it falling its when the sand above get stripped away that they appear to move closer to the surface when in reality the overburden was just stripped away from above it.
A layer of shells or even a different composition of material such as clay can stop the sinking process and act as a catch-all for an entire summer season that's when walking up on something like that can be very rewarding in the winter or when conditions allow it.
........ I just wanted to say after posting I read BigScoops response and think we're pretty much on the same page

 

[bigscoop]

Living on the east coast provided a big eye opener for me from one day to the next, and often from one tide change to the next. I never realized just how much sand can get moved around in a very short time if it's soft/fine enough. This sand movement can be greatly magnified when we move out into the water beyond the usual low tide line where this sand is being constantly stirred by the currents and surf. I've routinely seen 3-4 foot deep holes come and go with a single changing of the tides, even under mild conditions. But when you're on the beach nearly every day you come to realize that this generally takes place in the same locations because these areas are composed of heaps and heaps of deep sterile/fine sand, so it is very easy for the currents and wave action to push it around and to give it new shape. The problem is that even when these pockets of fine sand are dug deep there's still just more deep fine sand under foot so dense items will just continue to sink and sink.

On the other hand those areas of denser sand are much harder to strip away and to reshape. In these areas dense items such as gold rings will only sink until they come in contact with enough resistance to cause them to become stranded and suspended, such as when they come into contact with pockets of shell pack and/or clay. So the guy who really knows the lay of his beaches holds a great advantage because he already knows where to look for those potential accessible targets. And once a good storm passes that really removes the sand from the beaches then he has a tremendous advantage.

It's the difference between always swinging your coil over targets that are too deep to access and always swinging your coil over targets that can be accessed. A very experienced and successful hunter said it best in one of his post on these forums, "when I saw how much sand was on the beach I left to go find a better beach to hunt." It's a simple statement but it speaks volumes.

 

[G.I.B.]

Here's a couple of links explaining how the sand moves.

Moving here

Moving there

You could get a masters degree in littoral currents...