mineralized ground?

[sandtrout]

as a newbie i hear a lot about mineralized ground. what is it and how does it affect metal detectors? thanks for any replies! dan in so cal

 

[rodbuster]

Mineralized ground is any soil that contains conductive or non conductive components. A good example would be black sand or the oceans salt water. The salt from the water on the beach sand will cause your detector to react unstable.This can be overcome by the ground balance feature of your metal detector. What this does is neutralizes the effect of negative minerals in the search matrix.

 

[Hwy 395]

As you know sandtrout, I'm in So Cal too, and the ground sucks here. I've only come across a few places where the ground isn't heavily mineralized. I hate reading about people in Florida finding dimes at 12-13" because I know that just isn't possible here, for the most part. There are areas of the country where the ground isn't mineralized at all and they can detect very deep.

 

[LittleJohn]

So according to how your ground balance is set...and how mineralized the ground is....that will affect the depth at which your detector can find targets.....righht?

 

[Nauti]

Sort of Littlejohn.Ground balance is used to stop the false signals associated with ground minerals.....it makes the machine run quieter in areas of high minerals.However,it does not cancel the effects of minerals....they are still there and are still affecting the magnetic field of your coil.The affects can be dramatic (depending upon the level of minerals in a particular soil)...to the extent that most of a detectors depth can be reduced to just a few inches.Heavy mineral deposits can also turn what would usually be a nice clean signal into a broken,sratchy signal which most detectorists would pass over as a junk target.So even if you can make your machine run nice and quiet in mineralised areas,you will normally loose depth....how much depends on how bad the ground is.

 

[artzstuff1]

This is a good topic, is there anyone that has a chart or map that shows the strata or areas of the u.s. that have high or low or moderate minerals?

thanks

arthur

 

[sandtrout]

wow! this i a lot more complicated than i first thought! i guess i was thinking that if the ground was highly mineralized that you coil would pass over it and start reading as a target. then you'd dig it up and find nothing there. i didn't know that it could give different readings and that it could still affect your coil by shortening the depth. thanks again guys for answering my questions. lots more to think about. i've been pretty lucky with the ace 250 in where i've hunted (mostly parks and the dry areas of the beach though not much luck at the beach yet). i thought my back yard was highly mineralized (bing, bong, bong, bing-bing-bing, bong-bong) but when i called garrett they asked if i had any powerlines nearby. "you mean the telephone pole in my back yard?" so they recommend i turn the sensitiviy waaaaaaay down. i have a vaquero now that i'm learning. i didn't know that once you "ground balanced" that you could still lose depth. now i know! dan in so cal