The effects of excessive rain/moisture in different soil types

[RobNC]

It's Friday! That means at least 1 day is coming up to possibly metal detect. IF the weather is nice.
The last few weeks it has rained a lot. In my area the soil is mostly the old red clay type with little glistening sparkles in some areas I hunt. I've always noticed that when the ground is wet like it is now(hard downpour last night) the more iron tones I hear.

When you face situations like this, how can it be compensated for? Are there certain settings that work better than others in your experience?
Even when it is dry, most of the areas I hunt have iron buzz/tones. I find it hard to believe there is that much actual iron in the ground.
I have seen times I ran my coil across the ground that had the golden speckles in it and heard nothing. But yet when that same patch of ground is moistened the "iron" comes out in droves.
Just what is causing it I always wondered.

What I have tried in the past and it helped some is to reduce sensitivity. That at least reduced the effect but at the expense of depth. I've tried iron filter setting changes on my Equinox and Legend but yet that seems to not do much either. Tried recovery speed changes in the faster range, and also lower. Ground balances, not much help either.
Is there a way I could get some of my soil and actually test it to see what I'm fighting against? Is it even possible for micro minerals to be causing iron buzz? Sorry for so many questions but surely I'm not the only one in this boat and wondering.

 

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[malenkai]

Red clay is likely iron oxide (basically small particles of rust). Not what you want, and I am unaware of a way, using a VLF machine, to avoid it. Some people use PI machines to deal with highly mineralized soil, but that is another skill.

There is alot of cultural iron in the ground, at least around here, mostly nails and other small pieces of hardware. It does sound off harder in wet soil, at least for me. I'm told that that is from the water making the soil more conductive, and accentuating the "halo" of iron objects (also seems true of copper objects, not so much for silver, unfortunately, as silver is not very reactive to water in the first place). Just what I've been told; I am not an engineer, so confirm with someone who is.

There was a clown on here while back who claimed a certain new machine could see thru red clay, and even had some shipped from another state to "prove" it. IMHO, this individual was a shill, but I could be wrong about that. In any case, I have never seen this claim repeated by another user of said machine.

All I can suggest is try various machines and settings, and see what works the best, if a friend or someone has the machines you don't have. You will want to tune it to your local conditions anyway.

But, the bottom line is that you lose depth in mineralized soil, no way around it that I am aware of with a VLF machine.