Thermal Infrared Camera treasure hunting?

Rammjäger · May 19, 2019

Hello,
I am asking this because I was given a new
Thermal Camera and I was curious if this
Camera could be useful for locating objects
under the soil.Any ideas? Has someone tried it?
Is it possible?
HH
Ramm

Foragist · May 19, 2019

Don't know, but I have read the thermal readers can read temps at long distances, and they have used them to locate caves; sometimes from an airplane. Maybe not the same kind of device?

Rammjäger · May 19, 2019

Foragist said:
Don't know, but I have read the thermal readers can read temps at long distances, and they have used them to locate caves; sometimes from an airplane.

Thanks for your input. I couldn't test it yet,but
I researched it,looking for some YouTube videos
finding no specific answer to this question.
I guess, if the camera can trace differences in temps
of metal ,organic material etc. During daytime under the sun metal would normally absorb more heat than surrounding organic soil and so
make itself "visible to the camera sensor"
My main doubt would be how deep the object could be
to be traced by the camera sensor.If only on surface,or deeper....

GKL · May 19, 2019

I'm guessing the depth of the metal might make a big difference if it is deep enough the soil insulates it too much from the heat of the sun.

I didn't look at this video yet, just found it, but you can see if it helps at all

Finding Buried Treasure with Digital Cameras

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4JOjqYQZVY

Tom_in_CA · May 19, 2019

There was an entire T'net thread on the possibility that cameras can be made/used to find goodies. Specifically gold. Ie.: that gold or silver would/can give off a specific reaction. Versus the surrounding landscape. Some people actually believe it's possible. And spend tons of time playing with lenses, practicing on targets, blah blah

Naturally I was the skeptic's voice, along with a few others on that thread. Which .... skepticism is frowned on there. :roll:

Seen as "badgering" blah blah. But it was a good thread. You can read the various views there.

Tom_in_CA · May 19, 2019

But if you meant just metal-in-general : There's long-been the theory that buried metal in the ground absorbs and releases the day-time heat, at a different rate than surrounding soil. Such that ... in theory .... you could detect thermal differences at dusk time or whatever.

I fail to see what benefit that would give any of us. I mean .... gee .... couldn't you equally wave a metal detector over the spot and get a "beep" , to indicate "metal" ?

Rudy · May 19, 2019

Tom_in_CA said:
There was an entire T'net thread on the possibility that cameras can be made/used to find goodies. Specifically gold. Ie.: that gold or silver would/can give off a specific reaction. Versus the surrounding landscape. Some people actually believe it's possible. And spend tons of time playing with lenses, practicing on targets, blah blah

Naturally I was the skeptic's voice, along with a few others on that thread. Which .... skepticism is frowned on there. Seen as "badgering" blah blah. But it was a good thread. You can read the various views there.

Imagine you have a buried metal plate. During the day, the sun warms the ground and the metal plate). Now, the plate and the surrounding ground that is at the same depth, are in thermal equilibrium (same temperature) Now, lets say that the sun is suddenly obscured by a dense cloud cover. The earth at the surface begins to cool down. There is then a temperature difference between the soil at the top and the soil (and the metal plate) at depth and therefore heat begins to flow to the surface. It is fundamental that heat energey can only flow across a temperature gradient, from the higher temerature to the lower temperature.

The next question to be asked is how much heat flows and does the heat from the metal plate flow any faster or slower that the heat in the surrounding ground. The amount of heat flow is inveresely proportional to the thermal resistance of the dirt between the metal plate and its surrounding layer, and the top of the ground. We should expect the thermal resistance of the material above the plate to be the same as that above the surrounding soil.

So, with the same starting temerature difference and with the same thermal resistance, the temperature of the metal plate and its surrounding soil will be pretty much the same so a thermal imaging camera should not pick up a difference.

Scooterjim · May 19, 2019

I have always wanted to use one to look for moles. Little diggers are always tearing up my backyard. I have a woods behind me and it doesn't matter what I treat the yard with or how many I trap they keep coming back. The dogs get a couple a week and tear up the yard even more looking for them.

Tom_in_CA · May 19, 2019

Rudy said:
Imagine you have a buried metal plate. During the day, the sun warms the ground and the metal plate). Now, the plate and the surrounding ground that is at the same depth, are in thermal equilibrium (same temperature) Now, lets say that the sun is suddenly obscured by a dense cloud cover. The earth at the surface begins to cool down. There is then a temperature difference between the soil at the top and the soil (and the metal plate) at depth and therefore heat begins to flow to the surface. It is fundamental that heat energey can only flow across a temperature gradient, from the higher temerature to the lower temperature.

The next question to be asked is how much heat flows and does the heat from the metal plate flow any faster or slower that the heat in the surrounding ground. The amount of heat flow is inveresely proportional to the thermal resistance of the dirt between the metal plate and its surrounding layer, and the top of the ground. We should expect the thermal resistance of the material above the plate to be the same as that above the surrounding soil.

So, with the same starting temerature difference and with the same thermal resistance, the temperature of the metal plate and its surrounding soil will be pretty much the same so a thermal imaging camera should not pick up a difference.

Wait .... is this badgering and attacking the adherents of the method ? REPENT ! haha

Shblack · May 20, 2019

The short answer is no. Thermal imaging lets you see differences in temperature / emissivity (flat black = emissivity near 100%, shiny aluminum = emissivity 20-50%). With a buried object you won’t see the emissivity differences (can’t see the object), all that is left are soil temperature differences. If the object has been there some time it will be at thermal equilibrium with the soil, meaning there will be no temperature differences to image.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Rudy · May 20, 2019

Tom_in_CA said:
Wait .... is this badgering and attacking the adherents of the method ? REPENT ! haha

Naw, just trying to explain, without recourse to heavy math, some basic thermodynamic principles.

It's so sad how science gets in the way of some of these schemes.

Rammjäger · May 20, 2019

Maybe the infrared technology is already able to.
I hope someday in the near future it will be also accessible for civil use.

Shblack · May 25, 2019

Rammjäger said:
Maybe the infrared technology is already able to.

I hope someday in the near future it will be also accessible for civil use.

It’s readily available, Seek Thermal makes an IR imager that plugs into a smart phone.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Tom_in_CA · May 25, 2019

Shblack said:
It’s readily available, ...

And I will give you a crisp $100 bill for any treasure or goodies stories that you can cite, that can be attributed to this method of TH'ing.

SeabeeRon · May 25, 2019

Rudy said:
Imagine you have a buried metal plate. During the day, the sun warms the ground and the metal plate). Now, the plate and the surrounding ground that is at the same depth, are in thermal equilibrium (same temperature) Now, lets say that the sun is suddenly obscured by a dense cloud cover. The earth at the surface begins to cool down. There is then a temperature difference between the soil at the top and the soil (and the metal plate) at depth and therefore heat begins to flow to the surface. It is fundamental that heat energey can only flow across a temperature gradient, from the higher temerature to the lower temperature.

The next question to be asked is how much heat flows and does the heat from the metal plate flow any faster or slower that the heat in the surrounding ground. The amount of heat flow is inveresely proportional to the thermal resistance of the dirt between the metal plate and its surrounding layer, and the top of the ground. We should expect the thermal resistance of the material above the plate to be the same as that above the surrounding soil.

So, with the same starting temerature difference and with the same thermal resistance, the temperature of the metal plate and its surrounding soil will be pretty much the same so a thermal imaging camera should not pick up a difference.

Well, there you go bringing Science into the discussion!! :roll:

Tom_in_CA · May 27, 2019

SeabeeRon said:
Well, there you go bringing Science into the discussion!!

Yeah, Rudy is just a kill-joy. Likes to be argumentative. Sheesk, what are we going to do with him ? :laughing:

Rudy · May 27, 2019

SeabeeRon said:
Well, there you go bringing Science into the discussion!!

Tom_in_CA said:
Yeah, Rudy is just a kill-joy. Likes to be argumentative. Sheesk, what are we going to do with him ?

What can I say, I like debunking LRLs and other voodoo detection schemes.

Thermal Infrared Camera treasure hunting?

Rammjäger

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