Written by the TreasureGudie for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Couple Nicole Reales. |
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| Wave Tank Showing Replica Beach Profile After Waves. |
Erosion has been studied by using wave tanks like the one shown above. They are useful but not totally realistic.
Here is a link that will allow you to see the tank in process. It is useful if not totally realitstic.
(465) Beach Erosion - YouTubeFirst of all, the waves produced by the tank hit the replica beach at only one angle. Real beaches are curved and the bottom in front of the beach is irregular. Those are only two of the unrealistic features of a wave tank like the one above.
Nonetheless, the beach profile produced in this illustrates fairly well what happened to many of the Treasure Coast beaches during Nicole.. Notice the slope of the simulated beach and the sand bar created out in front of that. You could see that on many of the Treasure Coast beaches at low tide after Nicole. John Brooks was one such example. The waves from Nicole moslty came from the east and hit the beach very much like you see in a wave tank experiment. The high water pulled sand down the slope and deposited it out in front of the beach.
When beaches erode like that it is not as easy to tell how much it eroded without some landmarks or something to give you a reference. And older sand can be exposed from this type of erosion, but not always, and sometimes some of the sand from the high beach will end up on the slope, so it is not easy to tell exactly how deep the old sand is at any point. Sometimes you can find out by digging.
When you compare Nicole to Ian, they were very different. Nicole produced higher water, but it hit the beach straight on and produced few cuts except at the back dunes where there was a prior cliff or where there were rocks or something to disrupt the movement of sand. The water did not get as far back during Ian, but Ian cut into the slope on many beaches.
Ian came with strong winds that blew nearly parallel to the beach. The waves hit the beach at an sharp angle and sliced away sand. The water did not get as high, so the water did not erode the back dunes as did Nicole.
Despite the relative lack of cuts, Nicole produced a good number of treasure coins, but it was mostly where the water eroded the dunes. Objects could get washed down the hill though. And objects could get sifted and end up in the sand near the bottom of the slope. In most cases, the coins were near the dunes where they washed out. Some beaches produced while many did not.
The amount of renourishment sand on many of the beaches protected the older sand and materials on many beaches during both storms. Even where the water hit the back dunes, if the dunes were protected by renourishment sand, treasure coins were not washed out. And even where the middle beach was cut by Ian, there was in many places still enough renourishment sand that the cuts didn't get down to the older sand.
I'd say Nicole produced the more old Spanish treasure finds. I posted a few of those in this blog. It was spotty though. Many beaches did not produce.
I'll show you some fairly unusual examples - the kind of thing that doesn't happen often. Below is a photo of some dunes eroded by Nicole.
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| Dunes Eroded by Nicole. |
At the point this photo was taken, the beach at the base of the dunes was starting to refill already.
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| Dunes Eroded by Nicole. |
Notice the steep slope below the cut here. These eroded dunes were new dunes though. They were made of sand that had accumulated in recent years and contained no old treasure.
At John Brooks a lot of new dunes were formed on the front beach in recent years. The dunes spread out towards the water line making the beach appear narrower than was the actual case. And the dunes that were cut there, being newer, did not contain treasure.
Below is an interesting bit of erosion that occurred as the result of Nicole.
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| Fence Line Uncovered by Nicole. |
There was entire line of maybe fifteen or twenty of these fence posts like the ones shown above that were uncovered. From the sand to the top of the concrete base is over a foot, however, and here is the important part, those newly exposed fence posts were hidden under several feet of sand for years. I haven't been there for a quite a while, but I had been there in the past, and when I was there, the fence line was not visible at all.
I don't know if treasure was exposed at this spot. I got there after it had already been detected and didn't find any there. It was surely a good example of the kind of erosion that you don't see often and should certainly be detected any time you find something like that.
In another location a very hard layer of while compacted material was exposed. I had never seen that prior to Nicole even though I had detected the area in past years several times.
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| Layer of Hard Packed Material Exposed by Nicole. |
Some old coins were found on top and around this white layer of hard compacted material. Old coins were found here. When I returned to this spot the white layer was covered again and I couldn't find it. I wish I could have found it. I wanted to do some experiments and determine what it was made of. I don't know if it was natural or man-made. I never saw anything like it before. I should have marked it when I saw it so I could find it even if it was covered.
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Russ P. who found the elongated lead objects that I've shown and discussed in recent posts had some comments after the helpful email from Peter H.
Here is what Russ said.
I read Peter's potential explanation for the purpose of the elongated pieces of lead with great interest. His explanation is intriguing. I believe it is a real possibility based on the uniform size, shape and groove. Also, there is additional corroborating evidence. The objects were found close to one of the survivor's camps.Those objects are now of tremendous interest to me. It's possible, I suppose, that the lead held down fishing nets for the survivors of the shipwrecks, playing a critical role in their survival. Amazing!
Thanks for posting the items. The collective knowledge of your readership is truly impressive.
Russ
I also wanted to repost comments relevant to the other mystery item in my 11/15 post from Glen S. because I added them after I originally did that post so you might have missed it.
Glen S. said, That item found by Terry T looks like it could be a roller from an old mule driven sugarcane mill.
I think the object is most likely a roller of some type Originally, I wondered if it might be a survey marker or if it might have something in it, but I assume it would have been mentioned if it seemed to contain anything. |
| Source: MagicSeaWeed.com. |