Ground Mineralization

[markg]

How can you tell how mineralized your ground is?

 

[tabdog]

I don't know Mark, But I heard that on a three and three quarter turn MGB control, you can turn it all the way to the negative, four revolutions. Then turn it two complete revolutions toward the positive. At that point it is supposed to be set a little positive.

I would assume that if that is correct, you can turn it a little to the negative and you might be close to neutral.

That's hear say, but that's how I've been told to set it a little positive.

Maybe one of these more experienced guys will help out.

HH,

 

[markg]

Maybe I should ask, how do you know if the ground is highly mineralized?

 

[tabdog]

You got me on that.

I don't have much in the way of mineralized soil. I do encounter mineralized rocks and I usually adjust the ground balance to accept them.

Maybe you'll get a good answer and we can both learn something

HH,

 

[fwcrawford]

n/t

 

[JHM]

I can only tell you how I know mine is. The area where I live has a lot of red gravel, red clay, & red sandrock. Iron oxide is red. My detector has GB. My ground is more negative that other areas I've hunted. This hurts depth also. I have had 2 silver dimes buried in the yard for a couple of years. The Tejon and Explorer will pick the one that is 8 inches deep. The Vaquero will pick up the one that is 6 inches deep. In good ground I would most likely get 30 percent more depth. I've dug 10 inch dimes with the explorer in other places.

 

[Wirechief]

A lot of the time you can tell just by the amount of ground noises or response on your detector. I know I have a lot of iron magnetite in my soil. When in all metal I get false signals everywhere. I know that a lot of clay type soil is very mineralized. But I just read what others are saying about the subject and compare to where they are located. I also found out that on some ranches out here there is a clay type dirt which has a high aluminum content, the local maker of cement material seeks out this dirt and buys it from the ranchers because the high aluminum content makes for a better cement! Just my thoughts.

John Tomlinson,CET

 

[tonyb]

Maybe a taste test would work mark HA!!!!!!!! Just kidding

 

[robert roy]

Hummmm.
I don'T know about Tesors.
On my MXT I have a visual readout. If my ground is highly mineralized it will come up as "Hot Rocks." I can switch over to rthe prospecting mode and it will give me a numerical value. "If your number is 30 to 50, you have low or no mineralization (lucky you!). Readings of 50 to 69 are found in moderately mineralized soil. A reading of 70 or over is highly mineralized soil. In general, highly mineralized soils are much harder to hunt in, often tend to have more hot rocks and as a result are noisy to hunt over. I have had readings in the 80's. Some areas with moisture and a high alkali or salt content can cause their own set of problems. They read very low on the ground scale and give ground readings in the 20s. The MXT has a separate salt adjustment on the ground balance settings for work in these areas." But thats with my MXT. I think only two tesoros have the VDI screens and I don't know if they give a numerical value for ground mineralization.

Regards
RObert R

 

[Scully]

You can get a rough indication by comparing air test depth to actual ground depth. In other words, if you get 12" on a nickel in an air test, you should be able to get the same amount (or more) in the dirt. If you only get 6" in the dirt, you dont know exactly how "bad" the soil is, but you will know its mineralized to point of you loosing significant depth. A better way to run this test is by setting a nickel on the ground, scan it and lift your coild to see how far you can read it. If there is a lot of mineralization in the ground it will affect how deep you can read it because during this test your machine is seeing the ground matrix and it will affect the results.

The only other way is to use a machine that monitors the iron content. The F-75 is another machine that has a iron meter.

 

[rentasquid]

and ask them the mineral content of the local soil. If you have an agent, they should know. Or perhaps a local university. Most of those have a geology dept. that could tell your what the local assay is. I took geology in college, and knew what my native soil was like in my state(Oregon). Even knowing that my soil was highly mineralized, I didnt know how many of my detectors would react when taken away from the parks and schools in the area. When I went out into a few "wild" settings, my Cortes would false like crazy because of the rocks and soils in the areas that I was trying to cover. Falsing was a big problem for me with any factory set GB.

Dont know if this helps or not.

J.

 

[markg]

[quote tonyb]Maybe a taste test would work mark HA!!!!!!!! Just kidding[/quote]

 

[Uncle Willy]

Turn the sensitivity up on your detector. If there is mineralization your detector will go nuts.

Bill