150 year old grass

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Forgot this from my last post....

[attachment 120747 Picture106.jpg]

When I dug up the 1854 LC yesterday I popped this clump of dirt out of the ground before I retrieved the coin. You can see the impression of the coin. I thought I had a nice silver coin, going by the XS's ID, but the preserved grass told me copper.

Copper is being used in the new treated lumber instead of arsenic; it is a good preservative. The grass in close contact does not rot, so it is probably pretty close to 150 years old.

You don't get this with silver coins.

Also shoots down the arguement some make about coins "sinking" in the ground until they reach "equilibrium" Pretty sure the grass is lighter than the copper and the two would have parted company years ago.

Chris

 

[rbholt80]

Thats cool.I have seen that with other pennies iv dug up. I never felt that coins sink I aways could see that its just stuff building up ontop of them. If they sank some would be miles down in the earth by now. But who knows just as long as i can still find them without a backhoe im good.

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Chris,Interesting,I disagree coins sink.Throw a quarter in the mud section of my pasture it will sink immediately.Question if they don't sink how do they get so deep in the ground.I don't buy the layers of Earth build up around the coins either.By the way my tractor sinks also,which has left some deep ruts.

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

Ron there are times that soil behaves like a liquid. I'm positive about the layers of Earth building up. Otherwise where does black dirt come from?

Chris

 

[johnnywilliamson]

I have seen lots of discussions about this on the Explorer forum, and bringing a geologist's perspective, I feel a coin's depth is impacted by many different factors, such as the composition of the soil (sand vs. clay vs. ? content), degree of bioturbation in the soil around and beneath the object, effects due to regional weather (freeze/thaw, shrink/swell, and/or flooding potential), and on and on. Not a cut-and-dried answer here, and very location dependent. In my opinion, generally, coins "sink" due to soil shifting around/beneath it (much less in clayey soil) AND by getting covered up by sedimentation (leaves, dust/dirt, etc.) over time. JW

 

[Eddie in Poulsbo]

Well preserved grass Chris. Thanks for the pic.

Eddie

 

[utahshovelhead]

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

[Nate in Ohio]

Thanks for the post, I found it very interesting. And I agree...leaves and grass blades and rotting wood and whatever else gets decomposed by nature, constantly supplying fresh soil on the surface, which becomes covered by more topsoil that nature forms, and so on.