mineralized soil

If your in an area you have never hunted what tests can you preform to know the mineralization of the soil. Does mineralization affect the coil swing?

Get a Gold Bug Pro, F75 or XP Deus and pump the coil over a clean spot.

Perhaps I worded the question wrong I would like to know how you tell the degree of mineralization in the soil

One way to tell is manual G.B. when I look at a soil complexity map my head spins, I wonder where Tom or anyone who hunts in inert soil set the G.B.?[www.fao.org] I guess it's not lip service when your advised to G.B. often? Never hunted in iron rich, red soil and only twice on salt water beach, a couple of the tougher places to hunt and I know coal/coke areas are no picnic! HH

Perhaps if you would tell us what kind of unit you are using someone experienced with that unit could help...Whites has units that allow you to measure and on a CZ the amount of turn to change the ground balance gives you an idea. In other words what unit will you be using.....

I don't want to speak for the OP, or assert that I know his intent, but I know that a similar question has popped into my head. Here is how I intend the question:

Let's say you are going to visit a location. You may have 3 or 4 different detectors you could use, but you can only bring 1. If one differentiator btw detector performance is based on ground conditions, is there some way to know in advance what the level of mineralization is likely to be? It could be those soil complexity maps. Or perhaps you're familiar with the landscape, but as a relative newbie, you're not sure how to relate those conditions to what that means with respect to mineralization.

Using the beach as an example, you know that if you're going on wet sand or in the water, you're likely to face different conditions than on the dry sand. If you research a little, you can also learn that many of the FL Gulf coast beaches have little/low mineralization relative to the Atlantic side, and that up in New England beaches it might be even more mineralize. I've gotten that from reading various forums. But is there some other way of learning or determining that in advance?

Thanks,
Rich

Its not a matter of the unit Dan. Its a matter what the mineralization in the soil , and choose a detector that will do the best job in that particular area. I know that some detectors work better in some soils than others. Maybe It's more of a philosophical question than a realistic one?

I know you have to find a clean area to GB but also I would do a reset on you machine and I have been there and my machine just didn't work right but I manged to find a 1860 army button. We did get some hits and dugt them to find a lot of bits of iron in the ground. Flakes that caused the machines to not work the way they should have.

LowBoy

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
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Tom D. replied to this question in another thread.


"Valuable question. Mineralization 'values'.... (content volume)................ dictates how well your metal detector will perform (depth and ID accuracy)........... by the amount of mineralization in your specific dirt. One of the most common mineral inhibitors (bad dirt)..... is called magnetite. It is a ferromagnetic-based mineral with something called 'magnetic susceptibility'. . . . . caused by hysteresis. ((( Hysteresis = magnetic "memory" .... measured by a decay time-curve ))). When a 'external source' (the coil of the metal detector) is applied to ferromagnetic materials (bad dirt) .... the permeability (willingness to become magnetized) of the magneitie (bad dirt) dictates how the electromagnetic energy of the coil is shunted/inhibited/distorted. Bad dirt (magnetite content) is measured in m-Cgs (micro Cgs) ................. and ..................... on some metal detectors ............... a gauge (digital readout or bar-graph) shows/displays the percent-volume of iron mineralization in your dirt. The only way to achieve a fairly accurate measurement (with these types of metal detectors)..... is to find a clean area (no metal targets under the coil) ..... and 'pump' the coil on the ground several times to achieve a overall/aggregate measurement of magnetite volume. A soil sample to a spectro-analysis lab can also provide this data; however, this is not cost-effective....... and soil mineralization levels change........ even just a few feet away from where the sample was taken............ rendered = not practical.

When you Ground Balance your detector.............. the specific 'number' that your Grnd Bal knob (or digital readout) lands on............. has nearly NOTHING to do with "how bad" (mineralization 'volume' ) your dirt is. You can have low ground balance settings........... or high ground balance settings............. and this has nearly nothing to do with how bad (mineralized) your dirt is.

What dictates how bad your mineralization %volume content is...............(((and another way to measure/see how bad your dirt is))) is 'how sensitive' is your Grnd Balance adjustment? If you are properly Grnd Balanced........... and you accidently bump your Grnd Bal knob just a tad off/away from a perfect Grnd Bal setting............... and your detector is still okay (somewhat ground balanced)............. then your mineralization is not so bad. If your Grnd Bal setting is slightly off (from a perfect Grnd Bal)...... subsequently causing your detector to have a severe reaction to a 'slightly off' Grnd Balance setting............ your mineralization is severe. In other words: How 'tight' is your ground balance "window". How much 'forgiveness' in the Grnd Bal setting?

I know I have mentioned this data before..... (a few times)........ yet, it is worth repeating.

Pulse Induction (PI) detectors are substantially better at handling bad mineralization conditions."


Hope this helps.....it did for me. HH

It's always good to read it again Welwood, thanks for kicking it up.

The best manual GB system I have ever used is on the Gold Bug 2. There is a two knob stack, with the coarse control surrounding the fine one. The coarse control is click stopped, so if you are more than a bit out of balance, you add or subtract a click or two and then touch it up if necessary with the fine balance.

Nice

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

I should have gone under search first It just didnt occur to me sorry

Bill1234 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I should have gone under search first It just
> didnt occur to me sorry

Another thing to consider when doing a search is to google your question. I have had very good response
doing that and you also get hits from other forums instead of just the one you happen to be on. That said,
you just happen to already be on the best forum to get answers to your questions. IMHO

THANKS Welwood470 !