3/24/24 Report - Local Off-Beach Finds. How Knowing Geology of an Area Can Help Answer Questions.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Finds Made by Dan B. on an Off-Beach Site.

Dan B. sent the photo above along with the following email.

Been a while since I have had anything meaningful to share. I have hunted a local property for a few years every time they mowed it well enough and recently they cleared it completely. I spent 3 days in the last week hitting it as they went through the stages of piling trees and debris. I isolated what must have been an old structure in the back center by hearing hundreds of nails.

Everything I dug in this area was older and as my son instructed me repeatedly to "dig everything" I was able to have pretty good luck. Yesterday I did my final search and didn't find much, so I came settled with that fact that there will likely be concrete there in a few days.

I have made the mistake of not taking advantage of these windows in the past and they close quickly and forever.

Unfortunately my best find is a 1937 bomber's pin with Latin phrase at the bottom that translates to death from above...is not in the photo.


I have to assume the other photo is of a matchbook holder. Appears that the matchbook was still in there and reads

"Never stop growing"? I can't read all of the text.

Matchbook Holder Find by Dan B.

Thanks for sharing Dan.

Metal detecting windows can easily be missed or not used to full advantage.  It can be something like expecting it to remain open and being able to come back later only to find the opportunity gone or something as easy as not have a full battery charge on your detector and running out of power in the middle of a great hunt.  

It is especially true for beach hunting, because beach conditions can change quickly.  I've told about some of the times when I failed to take advantage of an opportunity like that and I don't know how many I missed completely by just not being there at the right time.

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On a web site developed by the Mining Association of Nova Scotia that was designed designed to promote the mining industry, there are some fun learning activities for the public.  One of those activities includes some interesting facts about the geology of Oak Island that could explain some of their mysteries.

Here are a few of the facts presented on that web site.

Oak Island is a drumlin - rock, sand, gravel and clay deposited by glaciers as the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. Actually, the island is four connected drumlins.

Because Oak Island is drumlins, it may have layers of gravel below sea level which could explain the flood tunnel mystery. Searcher shafts might just be intersecting sea water naturally flowing underground through gravel, which is porous (i.e. water can flow through the spaces between the rocks).

Oak Island's eastern bedrock, where the Money Pit is located, is limestone and gypsum. They are soft rocks that often erode in groundwater, creating natural tunnels and cavities. Some of the underground tunnels and cavities on Oak Island could be naturally-occurring instead of man-made.

For example, in 1878 the Cave-in Pit was discovered on Oak Island when oxen plowing a field fell into a large hole. It might have been a naturally-occurring sinkhole, not one created as part of an elaborate tunnel system, as some believe. Nova Scotia has many sinkholes caused by erosion of soft minerals like gypsum.

I didn't know oxen were used for anything but moving loads of treasure on Oak Island.

Here is the link for more about that.

The Mystery of Oak Island | Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

Here is another one from that site.  The theory that a ship could have been floated to the island's triangular swamp and sank there wouldn't have been possible a few hundred years ago because the sea levels were 1.5 metres lower.

And Oak Island was not always an island.  It was a peninsula when the water was lower.

One of the first things I would be interested in is how the size and shape of the island has changed over the years.  Some good old maps could show that.  I suspect that it was once very different.

To me the most impressive thing is the almost complete absence of anything that would actually be defined as treasure in the past several years.

I won't go on but now you might see why many people regard the show as a low-IQ comedy. 

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Surf Chart From Surfguru.com

Looks like a peak surf Tuesday of around six to seven feet.

Blessed Palm Sunday,

Treasureguide@comcast.net