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Soil Types

mh9162013

Elite Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2019
Messages
1,741
Location
KY
In my area, the top layer of ground is the almost black/very dark brown soil. This lasts for maybe a few inches to 8 inches. Then after that, the ground turns a very light brown/orange color. I think it's a type of clay?

My question: is the upper black/dark brown soil probably low in mineralization, but the orange/clay soil is likely highly mineralized?
 
In my area, the top layer of ground is the almost black/very dark brown soil. This lasts for maybe a few inches to 8 inches. Then after that, the ground turns a very light brown/orange color. I think it's a type of clay?

My question: is the upper black/dark brown soil probably low in mineralization, but the orange/clay soil is likely highly mineralized?

Does the lt. brown/orange sediment below the dark surface soil have significant sand admixed or is it pretty much truly all clay? Some sand can be pretty fine.

The orange sediment sounds like it has a fair amount of oxidized iron minerals in it. Do you generally get your finds in the dark sediment or both? The dark surface soil likely contains lots of organic material from plants.
 
Does the lt. brown/orange sediment below the dark surface soil have significant sand admixed or is it pretty much truly all clay? Some sand can be pretty fine.

The orange sediment sounds like it has a fair amount of oxidized iron minerals in it. Do you generally get your finds in the dark sediment or both? The dark surface soil likely contains lots of organic material from plants.

As far as I can tell, the brown/orange sediment is all clay. I mean, I could be wrong, but the seems pretty uniform and smooth.

Almost all my finds are in the upper/darker soil, not this clay.
 
In my area, the top layer of ground is the almost black/very dark brown soil. This lasts for maybe a few inches to 8 inches. Then after that, the ground turns a very light brown/orange color. I think it's a type of clay?

My question: is the upper black/dark brown soil probably low in mineralization, but the orange/clay soil is likely highly mineralized?

More than likely MORE mineralized, yes...but not necessarily enough or in a way to affect your machine. I have SUPER high clay content in my soil here but it's grey not orange. Clay catches more minerals...but what minerals did it catch? It's not neccessarily something that will affect detector responses in a measurable way.

There is orange soil all around the world...and orange for different reasons. I looked it up, just to compare. Even in our shared region there are several vastly different orange soils! I don't think it's an issue in your case. I think I know the stuff you mean. If anything you might have to slightly offset your ground balance if you have one, and if anything increase your sensitivity to punch through the density if it's clay. There's also a more loamy and loose orange soil I've seen, which might be more what youre talking about. Black specklings increase as you go down. There's often an intermediate layer of both. That whole scene I'd worry even less about. It's very analogous and clay gets gradually more thick as it goes down. That is specialized clay content, mixed with forest loam. It mixes at the water table. By the time the stuff gets really thick and deep, it's probably out of range of most detectors. Can you provide a photo of the layering?
 
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More than likely MORE mineralized, yes...but not necessarily enough or in a way to affect your machine. I have SUPER high clay content in my soil here but it's grey not orange. Clay catches more minerals...but what minerals did it catch? It's not neccessarily something that will affect detector responses in a measurable way.

There is orange soil all around the world...and orange for different reasons. I looked it up, just to compare. Even in our shared region there are several vastly different orange soils! I don't think it's an issue in your case. I think I know the stuff you mean. If anything you might have to slightly offset your ground balance if you have one, and if anything increase your sensitivity to punch through the density if it's clay. There's also a more loamy and loose orange soil I've seen, which might be more what youre talking about. That I'd worry even less about. It's very analogous and gets gradually more thick as it goes down. That is specialized clay content, mixed with forest loam. By the time the stuff gets really thick and deep, it's probably out of range of most detectors. Can you provide a photo of the layering?

I can't provide a photo right now, but I'll try to get one eventually.

I'm just trying to figure out if I have mineralized soil or not. So many people talk about how they have mild or hot soils like it's some easily determined fact, but apparently, it's not as easy to determine as I thought. You and others are definitely providing me advice and insight that is very helpful.

I'm in the market for a new machine and I'm debating whether to get Multi-IQ or not because I think I live in an area with a good potential for deep silver. But I think some of this silver will be deep...possibly within this "orange clay."
 
I can't provide a photo right now, but I'll try to get one eventually.

I'm just trying to figure out if I have mineralized soil or not. So many people talk about how they have mild or hot soils like it's some easily determined fact, but apparently, it's not as easy to determine as I thought. You and others are definitely providing me advice and insight that is very helpful.

I'm in the market for a new machine and I'm debating whether to get Multi-IQ or not because I think I live in an area with a good potential for deep silver. But I think some of this silver will be deep...possibly within this "orange clay."

No it's not always so easy to determine. If the soil is different than what you normally detect in, and you have lots of sporadic weak squawking but little results to show for it...yes, minerals are interfering. 15 or 20 minutes at a location digging your hits should determine that. The question is it the clay density interfering, or is it deposits? Not everything is orange because it's metallic or ferrous, although I understand your apprehension. You'll have to test it a little on your end to be sure. Maybe try burying just one or two things there about where the layer change takes place and swing. Should be obvious by then. When I looked up orange soil earlier I was amazed at what a spectrum there is but for very different reasons. It can be a result of different things. I've seen orange soil before and swung there thinking, "Oh, maybe an iron deposit runoff". Nope. Not a peep.
 
No it's not always so easy to determine. If the soil is different than what you normally detect in, and you have lots of sporadic weak squawking but little results to show for it...yes, minerals are interfering. 15 or 20 minutes at a location digging your hits should determine that. The question is it the clay density interfering, or is it deposits? Not everything is orange because it's metallic or ferrous, although I understand your apprehension. You'll have to test it a little on your end to be sure. Maybe try burying just one or two things there about where the layer change takes place and swing. Should be obvious by then. When I looked up orange soil earlier I was amazed at what a spectrum there is but for very different reasons. It can be a result of different things. I've seen orange soil before and swung there thinking, "Oh, maybe an iron deposit runoff". Nope. Not a peep.

Thanks again for your great insight.

The thought cross my mind this morning when I was metal detecting my back yard.

Normally, I go for my front yard, where there are far more coins. However, I wanted to try something different and hunt the backyard today.

Well, just like the front yard, the upper layer is dark brown/black, with an orange "clay" layer underneath. However, the difference is that I hit the orange clay far sooner in my back yard than my front yard.

Anyways, when using my Garrett Carrot on its max sensitivity, I think it started falsing on the orange clay soil in my back yard. It was most pronounced when I had a very large clump of it...say something the size of a softball or larger. So this got me to thinking that my orange clay soil is very mineralized.

Now that I think about it, I've always noticed that whenever my Garrett Carrot is on its max sensitivity, it "seems" to always say there's a metallic object deeper in the hole I just dug. I always assume it's b/c my front yard is so trashy (which it is). But perhaps it's because the orange clay is setting off the Garrett Carrot?

Assuming my observation is correct, is it fair to assume that a soil that makes a Garrett Carrot false on its max sensitivity is "highly mineralized?"
 
If you have 8" of black dirt you are lucky, I have maybe a few inches of that before I get into the red clay oxidized and mineralized stuff...if that.
That being said, I have hunted for years in both this kind of challenging soil and also fantastically great dark, beautiful, low mineralized black dirt out west and have found more than my share of treasure in both types.
Despite that, something like 95% or more of my finds have been 6" or less in depth including some really old stuff found surprisingly shallow in both the good and the bad dirt.
I have recovered 150+ years old targets that were not much deeper than 5-6", sometime less, in all kinds of dirt and conditions so don't be so sure there are tons of better targets past 8".
There could be a few but probably a lot less than you think.
Also once you get into the red stuff if it is filled with clay most targets don't or can't sink very deep into that stuff, mostly it just lands on top and hangs out there.
I deal with thick clay like this all the time at most of my sites most everywhere I hunt so trust me on this.
If your deeper level dirt isn't so thick with clay you could sink into that area a bit more.


Depth is one thing and it can be important but more important is using a tool that can ID targets at depth accurately, and I mean 5-8" deep can make a huge difference.
Get a tool that can do that and you will be shocked at is much is actually down there and actually how deep targets seem to be hanging out.
When I went from the F2 to the F70 my volume of finds grew exponentially but most newly acquired targets I was able to notice still seemed to be only 6"-7" or less in depth.
 
If you have 8" of black dirt you are lucky, I have maybe a few inches of that before I get into the red clay oxidized and mineralized stuff...if that.
That being said, I have hunted for years in both this kind of challenging soil and also fantastically great dark, beautiful, low mineralized black dirt out west and have found more than my share of treasure in both types.
Despite that, something like 95% or more of my finds have been 6" or less in depth including some really old stuff found surprisingly shallow in both the good and the bad dirt.
I have recovered 150+ years old targets that were not much deeper than 5-6", sometime less, in all kinds of dirt and conditions so don't be so sure there are tons of better targets past 8".
There could be a few but probably a lot less than you think.
Also once you get into the red stuff if it is filled with clay most targets don't or can't sink very deep into that stuff, mostly it just lands on top and hangs out there.
I deal with thick clay like this all the time at most of my sites most everywhere I hunt so trust me on this.
If your deeper level dirt isn't so thick with clay you could sink into that area a bit more.


Depth is one thing and it can be important but more important is using a tool that can ID targets at depth accurately, and I mean 5-8" deep can make a huge difference.
Get a tool that can do that and you will be shocked at is much is actually down there and actually how deep targets seem to be hanging out.
When I went from the F2 to the F70 my volume of finds grew exponentially but most newly acquired targets I was able to notice still seemed to be only 6"-7" or less in depth.

That's mostly just my front yard. I'm guessing that's due to landscaping work that's been done over the decades. Also, there are several large trees out front that drop plenty of leaves each fall.

Almost all the targets from my front yard have been in this darker top layer soil. I think there were two caveats to this, though.

One, I found an aluminum token circa 1890-1904. Two, there's the 1916 Merc I found a few days ago. So how did I find both of these just 2-4 inches deep?

Well, we had some storm water piping installed a few years ago that churned up a lot of dirt. I'm guessing they dug about 16 inches or so deep. The Merc was found in this churned up soil and I think the aluminum token was, too. Ergo, I believe there are silver coins in my front yard and in the front yard of my neighbors (I live in a neighborhood were almost every house has a sidewalk in front). My home and many others in my neighborhood are close to 100 years old, and some are likely even older. The catch? I think most of this silver (unless churned up) is in this clay.
 
I'll have to test that out in my yard. The front is loamy, the back is steep and has thick clay starting just 3" down. It stands to reason that the clay acts like a table that coins and other trinkets come to rest on. My house is only 90 yrs old. In the front I have found older cast iron and apparent parts of early 1900's tools, cars and machines, plumbing fittings and similar. I found some of these nearly a foot down. So far all coins were within 3" though and were modern. About 5ft from the road my loamy front yard suddenly has a compact gravel underlayer Just last week I found a coppered hex nut with imperfect facets in that gravel. Must have been fairly old. You can see the facets are not all the same length. I found that only about 4inches down in that hidden gravel under the outer 5ft of my lawn. I assume the gravel was dumped in a right-of-way as a result of utility work. That could have been anytime between now and 1930 or before. Before they built this neighborhood for coal miners it was all a farm and the barn supposedly was about 600ft away I'd guesstimate. They started building up here around 1921 I think...which makes perfect sense: The boom after WW1.

I'm kind of puzzled by what I've found in my front yard. Some of is at least as old as this house but it's mostly junk, broken tools and machine fittings, etc. As I said, ALL coins were late 20th century or later and not very deep. No coins in the photo. They were decent modern ones and mostly went into the big coffee can for rolling! ! These are just some of the larger, older chunks of metal found pretty deep with NO coins or anything else of interest. For reference, the nut is about 1-1/4".
 

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My backyard has tons of junk. My front yard is mostly coins, tiny snippets of aluminum siding, and tiny iron bits.
 
Thanks again for your great insight.

The thought cross my mind this morning when I was metal detecting my back yard.

Normally, I go for my front yard, where there are far more coins. However, I wanted to try something different and hunt the backyard today.

Well, just like the front yard, the upper layer is dark brown/black, with an orange "clay" layer underneath. However, the difference is that I hit the orange clay far sooner in my back yard than my front yard.

Anyways, when using my Garrett Carrot on its max sensitivity, I think it started falsing on the orange clay soil in my back yard. It was most pronounced when I had a very large clump of it...say something the size of a softball or larger. So this got me to thinking that my orange clay soil is very mineralized.

Now that I think about it, I've always noticed that whenever my Garrett Carrot is on its max sensitivity, it "seems" to always say there's a metallic object deeper in the hole I just dug. I always assume it's b/c my front yard is so trashy (which it is). But perhaps it's because the orange clay is setting off the Garrett Carrot?

Assuming my observation is correct, is it fair to assume that a soil that makes a Garrett Carrot false on its max sensitivity is "highly mineralized?"

Have you decided on another detector to add to your F2? The F75, F70,T2 and F19/G2+/Time Ranger Pros have excellent mineralization meters........... and outstanding ground balance options.
 
Have you decided on another detector to add to your F2? The F75, F70,T2 and F19/G2+/Time Ranger Pros have excellent mineralization meters........... and outstanding ground balance options.

I haven't decided on a machine yet, but I'm looking into my possibilities and the F70 and F75 are strong contenders. Knowing they have good mineralization meters is another characteristic to consider.
 
Update:

I went into my backyard and dug until I got to the orange clay/soil. With my Garrett Carrot on medium sensitivity, there was no falsing. But when on high sensitivity, a clump of orange clay the size of a baseball would set off the Garrett Carrot. This same clump would not set off my Fisher F2, however.

Is it safe to save that my orange clay has medium or high mineralization?
 
Some red, reddish orange and yellow clay, bricks, coal, slag and steam locomotive cinders can also be "hot" rocks. Some of these will set off my AT Max and Propointer.
In a orange hued subsoil in the Charleston, SC, area, iron objects from the 1920s-30s would become heavily rusted inside a ferruginous sandy nodule or concretion. That area has a fair amount of dark minerals in the sand and on the beaches it can become concentrated and even stratified. Much of it will cling to a magnet. It was most likely eroded from the Appalachians (parts of which are gold bearing - original USA gold rush in AL, SC, NC and GA) and deposited in coastal plain sandstones and unconsolidated sands. That area also is recurrently flooded and has a shallow water table and lots of marine water near by. Finding good metal detecting sites there could get pretty tricky because historically, the locals were forever moving dirt around for one reason or another. Lots of old buildings are around. History includes bad fires.
 
Another update:

I've been tinkering with my new Vanquish 540. I'm trying to decide if it's worth keeping or selling for a Equinox 600. Anyways, when I go into all metal mode with it and pump my soil, I get an iron tone as I approach the ground. Depending on the area, I get a -5 to a -9 on the VID.

When I go into custom mode and remove the first 2 "ticks," the pumping produces no iron tone.

Question: What advantages am I getting, if any, by removing the first 2 "ticks?" I got the impression that this was a "poor man's" way to ground balance the Vanquish. However, I feel that I am misunderstanding the purpose of doing this.
 
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