Tom_in_CA
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- Dec 23, 2013
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sshheesskk, what a kill-joy debbie downer. And I was just about to vote : Solid Platinum !
Unknown Metal dug in park
- Thread starter Rbnhood66
- Start date
sshheesskk, what a kill-joy debbie downer. And I was just about to vote : Solid Platinum !
Diga
Elite Member
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- Mar 22, 2022
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Trust me, I will be more than happy if that is what it is. Like I said, the weird thing was the type of reading on the second test for radiation. It was giving off a reading not typical of a normal level or something in a normal state for a known metal. How it was reading was strange too. So we shall see! It could be a fragment like the geologist said. There are some marks on it you can't see with the naked eye he pointed out. There were aluminum alloys used in bombs. The depth for the location and the fact it was under a tree root about as big around as my arm were really interesting. There are civil war relics, and all kinds of other things dug in this park. Usually no more than 6 inches though. So going by the geologist/palentologist, he thinks it was buried on purpose. I am interested in the ground search for radiation we are planning in the very near future, just to be safe.
Ok guys have an update. The metal is NOT aluminum. Still be determined on that. It is being sonicated in Acetone right now to clear off any organic material. I should know what it is in the next 14 days. I will get to be present at the initial testing. If it needs to be gamma tested, I don't know if I will get to see that. Next thing, we did a ground source test for radiation yesterday morning at the site. We found a couple of interesting readings, but there was no metal present. The tech stated it may have been pockets of radon gas that were being emitted. We were goofing around with the detector about 10m east of where I found the the metal, and I got the same weird signal. We put the radiation tester on the ground and it started getting "hotter" I guess for any better term. Dug, and 6 inches down, found another piece similar to the first one, just about half the size of the first one. The ground is extremely dry so digging it was different, but not difficult. My problem was the ground wasn't moist enough to pick through it for any other signs of it purposely being buried, such as a box or fibers. That piece went straight to the institute for further examination. I'll let you guys know what the metal is as soon as I know. I do know, and really should have thought about this, is that it could not be from the casing of an atomic weapon, as it would have vaporized upon detonation. The scientist explained a lot to me on how all this works. It was extremely interesting. I'll keep everyone posted. Even if it leads to nothing, the journey has been fun to say the least.
Tom_in_CA
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If you want more slag items like that, to toy & test with, I'll sell you boxes full of them. For a mere $5 for each blob. Friends and family discount !
dixiedigger57
Elite Member
wish you luck on the ID. i have tossed things over the years i did not know what it was, like cannon fuses, tossed several from Civil war era out of not knowing. we live and learn. strange things out there. the only dumb question is the one that is never asked.
if its really heavy i lean toward a guess of uranium, depleted piece from firing range.
hopefully you find out and post.
if its really heavy i lean toward a guess of uranium, depleted piece from firing range.
hopefully you find out and post.
Thanks Dixie. A lot of experienced detectors here have looked at it and said the same thing. They couldn't figure it out either. It was intriguing enough to get the school interested. The professor said he thinks it is a nickel alloy or titanium alloy of some sort by looking at it. It still shouldn't be where we dug it up if it is. I wouldn't have taken the time to make my post if I thought it was something simple. But enough interest has been given by the school and the county now, that testing is ongoing. It's cool watching them check it. It may not be anything, but learning how to determine it is neat, and has my kid and a few others really interested in the scientific process to determine what it is. All I wanted to do with my original post was just put something different up. It's not a coin, not a relic, and definitely not an aluminum can as we have found out. We have tried to rule out everything that it could be, and it keeps bringing up more questions. There is more to the story of the search with the radiation detecting tools, but I am not posting that here. If you want to reach out to me, email me and I will elaborate. But since some people in here want to discredit anything and everything without being involved, I will keep the rest of the story right now close.
Stiffwrists
Elite Member
Makes me wonder how many radioactive space metals I have thrown in the park garbage cans as I head home after a hunt. How long have you been in the hobby? If I obsessed about and tested every whatsit I've unearthed, I'd have no time to enjoy metal detecting.
dixiedigger57
Elite Member
Yea stiffwrists bullet reloading guys used to get the lead cylinders nuclear meds were shipped in to melt for bullets in the 70s. old plane mechanics got the soldiers to pick up pieces of depleted uranium for them.
a local guy found a civil war choice belt buckle on a bad area school yard. i know it was stolen and lost there. i was forced to attend that school a short while. thug city usa. no CW activity there at all and dirt was brought in years ago. you never know. my CW button was brought in dirt in a park renovation. things get moved around and stolen and lost and relocated etc....
the things i tossed
yea... oh well. i admire his determination to actually see what it is. if its junk well we know! i hopes its an odd goodie myself.
a local guy found a civil war choice belt buckle on a bad area school yard. i know it was stolen and lost there. i was forced to attend that school a short while. thug city usa. no CW activity there at all and dirt was brought in years ago. you never know. my CW button was brought in dirt in a park renovation. things get moved around and stolen and lost and relocated etc....
the things i tossed
yea... oh well. i admire his determination to actually see what it is. if its junk well we know! i hopes its an odd goodie myself.I haven't been really serious about it till my son got involved and I bought a nice detector ( I started with a Bounty Hunter that was given to me) for us to buddy up and look for stuff with. I'll do some surface searches at the parks on my downtime just pulling the junk out of the playgrounds that gets left (bullet casings, vape canistors, etc). When I was at this particular place my hunting buddies were out in the open field where all kind of stuff is found. I wasn't able to stay as long, so I was along the edge of the botanical gardens since a bunch of canopies were set up there the day before. My detector was giving off weird readings, so being the the learning mode that I am, I dug the metal up just to see why it was reading the way it was. Showed the metal to the three other detectorist in the park and all of us wondered what it was. Their Minelabs were reading similar to my Garrett and that is what was throwing us off. After that, just trying to figure out what the metal is, is what has led us this far and got other people in the scientific community intrigued, because it shouldn't really be there. Even if it is junk, like I have said before, it has gotten my son and some other youngins excited about the way we are going about figuring it out. It was just weird for the area, can probably be explained once we figure out what it actually is. The university obviously was also curious, or they wouldn't have set up this expensive equipment to test it. So we wait for the results now....
Found a really cool porcelain milk cap that had a tin center plate over it to seal it with nearby. Tokens, coins, CW stuff is all found in this park. The cap had a 1941 stamp on it. After we looked it up, it showed it was used on the milk bottles that were delivered to people at the time.
stetam
Elite Member
chillforlife
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My opinion too. Just enjoy the hunting and let us know what you find. Ignore the guys who are here to prove their brilliance.
Keep updating I'd love to know what it turns out to be. I've noticed there are a few members that spend lots of time here who seem to enjoy leaving negative comments on everything. If its not that they're being unbearable nerds arguing about shovel semantics.
Don't let tom get you down. He is a rare species that speaks his mind firmly and sticks to his guns until he is given proper evidence otherwise(a rare thing in modern times, so some people don't know how to deal with him) . You just haven't gotten the info yet to convince him. If it turns out to be something other than he thinks, he will be the first to say he was wrong when presented with the proper evidence.
I myself am curious as to what the proper results are.
Update:
Initial testing is tomorrow morning at 10. Dr says it should take about 2 hours. The machine for testing for the specifics of telling what kind of energies are present if any (the radiation part) that tie it to the materials will be done early next week. A specific piece of equipment is coming in next week to the university to do that test.
Initial testing is tomorrow morning at 10. Dr says it should take about 2 hours. The machine for testing for the specifics of telling what kind of energies are present if any (the radiation part) that tie it to the materials will be done early next week. A specific piece of equipment is coming in next week to the university to do that test.
FreeBirdTim
Elite Member
You're trying too hard to make this common find out to be something special. Many objects around us are slightly radioactive, so that means jack squat. It's just a melted hunk of aluminum, period. Why your team of scientists can't figure that out is beyond me.
Read this article and you'll understand that there are a lot of objects around us that are slightly radioactive.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180405-why-people-collect-radioactive-objects
Read this article and you'll understand that there are a lot of objects around us that are slightly radioactive.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180405-why-people-collect-radioactive-objects
Why don't you keep your negativity to yourself? It may not be special, but I don't care. The school seems to think it is something. SO if you don't care about how this goes, move the hell on along. Nobody is forcing you to look into it, your money isn't going into it, and it is a great teaching tool for the people that are interested. I can't go into the rest of what has happened since this find, so there is actually way more to this story now than what it started out as. It's sad that people like you and some others really take the joy out of getting into something new. Or trying to learn something new. I don't claim to know everything like some of you do, but by Hades I don't mind trying to figure it out. There are a LOT of experienced detectors around here that have said they are curious as well. Just so you know, a ground radiation check was done. And it did find pockets of what was probably radon gas. However, the metal that was found can not absorb it from the ground, and has been proven not to be aluminum. If you were near as smart as some of you think you are, then you would know aluminum does not retain radiation. I'm going to let it go at that. You don't care, move on along and let the rest of us have some fun for a change.
