8/14/20 Report - Hurricane Frances and Jeanne Erosion and Analysis. Metal Detecting Opportunity. Detectorist Operating Characteristics.

 Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Pile of Dirt Displaced By A Small Project.
Photo by Nick A.

... I always look for places other than the beach. During the pandemic lockdown in April, I noticed this small pile of dirt/grass that was dumped in a field. I knew there was a house nearby that just had driveway pavers put down, so after confirming it with the vacant fields caretaker, I went over it 3 mornings with my A/T Pro and came up with these finds. Mostly all 60's/70's clad but there was one nice 1941 quarter, 1945 wheat and an interesting piece of masonry. A lot for only maybe 4 yards of dirt. Too bad I didn't get to detect the yard before they put the pavers down.

Happy hunting!

Thanks, 

Nick 

Coins and Things Found in Small Dirt Pile.
Photo by Nick A.

 

Of course there is likely to be some junk too.

Miscellaneous Other Targets From the Dirt Pile.
Photo by Nick A.

That is a good reminder to stay alert for developing opportunities.  You never know what might be in there.

Thanks for sharing Nick.

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Below is a link to a pdf document entitled HURRICANE FRANCES & HURRICANE JEANNE Post-storm Beach Conditions and Coastal Impact Report with Recommendations for Recovery and Modifications of Beach Management Strategies, written by the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection.  You might enjoy looking through it.  Included is discussion of the details of the storms and the effect on the Treasure Coast as well as other areas of the state.  You'll see many photos of erosion and damage of beaches and structures around the state.

Here is a sample illustration showing the FIT Wave Data for Jeanne.

As you can see, the wave height from Jeanne as measured at the buoy reached over twelve feet, but only for a short time then quickly fell off.   You often see the surf decrease rapidly after the passing of a storm as the wind shifts.

They also provided illustrations showing various levels of erosion.  At the top is what is labeled minor erosion and at the bottom major dune erosion.  That seems to be a good way to grade beach erosion.  Here are those beach profiles.

I'll be referring to those in the future.

Also included are many photos taken after the storm, such as this one showing Wabasso.

If you went detecting after those storms, you might remember some of these scenes.  I 

You might find the report interesting.  Below is the link.

 https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/HurricaneFrancesHurricaneJeanne.pdf 

Thanks much to DJ for sending me the link to this report.

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And if you want to compare Frances and Jeanne with the Thanksgiving Storm of 1984, I gave a link to a report on the legendary Thanksgiving storm in an old post.

Here it is again.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2018/12/121918-report-more-on-legendary.html

The Thanksgiving Storm was very different from Frances and Jeanne in some ways but both resulted in some of the best beach hunting in the last fifty years.

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As I mentioned back a few days ago, there is a trade-off between false positive and false negative errors.  False positives occur when you mistakenly think there is a good target, and false negatives is when you think there is nothing good when there is.   A lot of the time, I'd take false positives over false negatives.  That means you would dig junk or nothing, rather than miss a good target.  But that has to do with what would be called the ROC (receiver operating characteristics).  When applied to metal detecting, the receiver is the detectorist, in which case we would be referring to the operating characteristics of the detectorists.

The operating characteristics include a number of things, including the characteristics of the detectorists sensory system as well as higher level cognitive functions, including things like focus, perseverance, and search strategies.

Search strategies are among the highest level and will change depending upon a variety of factors, including the detectorists assessment of the situation, target preferences and goals.  

Your assessment of the situation might include things such as beach conditions and the number and type or value of the targets that might be present.  If you think, as I did on the most recent hunt that I described, there are few targets remaining and they are likely to be deep, your search strategy would be different than if you think there are tons of near-surface targets.  In the first case you might decide to focus on the week signals and dig every target you can find, but in the second, you might decide to discriminate, hoping to quickly cherry pick as many of the most valuable targets as you can in the time available.  

As you hunt, you might continue to reevaluate the situation and change your strategies according to what you learn.

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We now have tropical storm Josephine, which isn't expect to affect us much.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

The tropics are active, so keep watching.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net