New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Warmer weather is coming and folks are spending a bit more time at the beach Here is an excerpt from a Gold, Gem and Treasure Collector's Edition Magazine which covered prospecting tips and techniques. I don't know how many times I have read it but........I also have a "How to find gold" Special edition. Both of them very dog eared.

Why do rings fall off fingers in the water? Sea water at the beach is going to be colder than our bodies. Even in Auckland in the summer, water is rarely above 20Deg C, down to about 12-14 in winter . Beaches in the south would be about 14 -16 in summer. You lose heat 24 times faster in water than air. This causes the skin around your extremeities to shrink. Add body oils and salt water then the chances of losing the ring on your finger go up.

When rings do fall off into the sand, because of gold's high specific gravity, it sinks throught he sand very quickly, same as the gold we seek in rivers. For interests sake, gold has a SG of 19.2, sand is 2.5.

Now think about the number of people who go to the beach and enter the water. How many are wearing rings? Alan Hassell who wrote the article says that at least one ring is lost a week on any given beach in the summer time. Most would not be found again. So think bout that one ring a week, think about how many years people have been going to the beach, and how many beaches there are in your vicinity or elsewhere if you travel.

His maths, which makes my mind boggle has come up with these figures from his home in Melbourne. Working on one ring a week for a year, and say swimminging has been popular for about 80 plus years, you re looking at 4160 rings, on one beach. The average weight of a wedding band is 3-4 grams. Do the maths, 4160 rings at say, 3 grams, don't want to seem greedy, would be 12480 grams of gold. Currently gold is trading at about $66.91 per gram. Out comes the calculator again, $835,036 and 80 cents.

We'll look at the tools and techniques next time. But think ladies and gentlemen, have you ever seen people shake their towels off before they hop on them to sunbathe. I know of many instances where people have taken their jewellery off and hidden it on their towel (don't sound safe to me" cos they didn't want to lose them in the water and, hello, they have thrown their rings away. I found five rings once upon a time at Waihi Beach. This was in the dry sand. Never to be repeated but often dreamed of. Now was that one person's rings or a collection from a group? Ladies, is there such a thing as too much jewellery????? As the guy in the relationship who has to pay fro these, I hope not. As the guy that likes finding these, I hope so.

Have fun folks

Dave

Part Two

Two types of beach detecting - Dry Sand and Wet Sand

Don't want to get your feet wet? Dry sand detecting is for you. All you will probably find are those items that have been recently lost, like the rings and money flung from a towel to shake the sand off, or the coins falling out of pockets when people sit down, lie down etc.

Look for where people congregate, play. If you are lucky enough for a patch of beach where they play beach volleyball, then you are certain, well pretty certain, of finding something. Imagine all those boys and girls throwing themselves about. Coins, and rings do get lost.

Wet sand detecting is divided into between the tide marks and below the low tide mark (in the water). One piece of advice I heard and have used is to start at the high tide mark and scan down towards the low tide mark and you may hit upon a patch of sand that holds "treasure" that lies horizontal to the water line. In some areas, there may be visual clues due to a patch of stones, hardpack etc. Like gold, coins, rings etc work there way down the beach, sinking lower into the sand until they reach an area where they may not be able to settle any further. Takapuna Beach for example, has an area of hardpack under the sand and if the tides take some of the sand away, treasures abound, or so my mates in the Te Tahi Detector Club in Auckland tell me. Something else which you may find useful is Long Shore Drift. Items may migrate along the beach and can all catch in the one glory hole. Corsair Bay in Christchurch, while only a small bay, gave me a great deal of finds in the early days of detecting there. I have never found more silver rings than I did there. I miss that place. Love to try it again with my Quattro.

Digging the targets out does not require any special equipment, a sand scoop or a spade is sufficient.

Detecting beneath the water on the otherhand, does require some more thought. Electronics and water do not mix, so unless you have a submersible detector like a Minelab Excalibur or Garrett Sea Hunter, you will only be able to put the head and stem in the water. But, not all detector heads are waterproof. Check with your manual or other users.

Locating a target underwater is only part of your problem. How do you get it from the sand up to the surface and into your mitts? Sand scoops come in a variety of makes and models and some come with long handles like a shovel. One way you can work is, once you have found something and pinpointed it, put your toe on the spot then put the tip of the scoop on your toe, move your foot back a bit along with the tip of your scoop then push the scoop into the sand. Make it a good scoopful. Hopefully the target is in the scoop and the action of moving the scoop through the water will hopefully sift the sand out leaving tour find in the scoop. If you are getting a lot of pull tabs, stomp your foot near the target and if it is a pull tab, the pressure wave will move the tab away.

Something else you might like in your arsenal is a floating sieve tied to your waist. Some sieves that you buy may fit in small inner tubes or can be made out of PVC piping with bird netting to act as the sieve. Both work.

I'll keep adding to this if anyone is interested, but I think the more you know about your subject, the better you get and the more finds.

Hi Guys, this is all very interesting infomation that Im loading it away to draw on. awsome for begineers like me. Pro Pointer arrived today and my AT Pro Garrett should be here tomorrow, Tomorrow night then by my theory I should be rich and wont need to purchase a lotto ticket this week, Ha Ha

awsome info..now where is that bay in CHCH..i live here but only for about a year or so now...and have never heard of it..but by the sounds of it would love to give it a go.

Also to add to your list of under water detectors is the Fisher CZ21 and 1280X both submersible up to 250 feet.