Soil Conditions and Ground Balance

I am trying to understand a little more about Ground Balance. So today I went to three different locations with the CZ3D. I made two aluminum bars, 1” wide, 1/8th “ thick and 12” long. At each location I inserted the bars into the soil until just the tips were exposed. I inserted them 12” apart, flat side facing each other.

I used a Cat 5E Multimeter to record the info

SITE 1
Resistance 7.42 K ohms
Voltage 23.3 mV DC
Current 2.5 micro Amps
GROUND BALANCE 4.9


SITE 2 near power lines
Resistance 5.37 K ohms
Voltage 245.5 mV DC
Current 56.6 micro Amps
GROUND BALANCE 6.1

SITE 3
Resistance 3.15 K ohms
Voltage 40.7 mV DC
Current 12.3 micro amps
GROUND BALANCE 5.2

So it looks like the more minerals in the soil, the lower the resistance or higher the conductance. High resistance means lower Ground balance. ( not as many minerals that are conductive in the soil) I would like to note that Site 2 was close to a power line. This may explain the higher voltage reading, plus it was not stable and would fluctuate. I think I will continue to record reading on each hunt. I will then see what the relation of resistance and GB continue to produce.

Detector settings were :
Volume 10
Sensitivity 10
GB as recorded

Because of the readings on Site 2, I feel that whenever I am working a site, and I move closer to powerlines, I will recheck my detector GB. This seems to increase the conductivity of the soil or lower the resistance. This will most likely be caused by the EMF of the powerlines.


Tom in SC

Now............just add water!