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How much should a ring move in the wet sand

skate-teacher, good question and good topic. And I see you've gotten great input so far. Gold DOES move. But moves very slowly with the shifting sand. And mostly "down", unless the sand movement has a lot of energy. But if it's just subtle sand movement, then ... like scuba says ... mostly just "down". Not left or right following sand migration.


I have seen serious erosion conditions where you can tell heavy lead objects (sinkers) moved. Because it's apparent that mother nature groups them into zones by-weight. It all depends on the size/weight/shape of ring.

Southern CA has been placid calm for a long time now. So I'll bet it's right where it was lost. Within a few feet.
 
Thanks for all the great replies. Unfortunately I did not find the ring today. I covered all the areas they thought it might have been and I even went out well beyond the low tide line into the water with the Excal and nothing. Sucks for sure but I guess we can't always find everything but I did nail 4 pennies and some big capri sun juice boxes.
 
I've seen people lose rings in small roped in swimming sections and try to find it during low tide where they thought it was lost.... never are they in the correct spot. 20ft in any direction.. sometimes in the swimming section next to it even.
 
I've seen people lose rings in small roped in swimming sections and try to find it during low tide where they thought it was lost.... never are they in the correct spot. 20ft in any direction.. sometimes in the swimming section next to it even.

This and other situations like folks having pictures of where they lost it are PROBABLY identifying the spot as to where they noticed it missing. Just because someone thinks they lost it where they are at, doesn't mean they did.

I have read all the stories and maybe I am wrong in some situations. A very large ring, or ring with a flat top like a signet could fall and be orientated in a way that the waves or surges will hit the flat spot on the ring.

I have found wheat cents and other coins worn to a thin wafer of a coin but never a ring moving with the waves on the great lakes.

As we all know, we all have had different experiences and different situations we have seen while out detecting. So it is VERY possible some folks have witnessed a situation someone else has never seen.

A coin will tumble in wave action. A ring will not because there is no surface material. This is only my observations. You can't even put a thread on a ring in rough water because the waves would push against the thread.

All anyone can do is drop a gold ring at the water edge in rough seas and TRY to watch what it does. LOL anyone want to experiment?
 
shoot well duh that makes sense :laughing: i found a big ol steel ring looking thing hahahha i guess it way a ring idk but i am gonna test this with this ring im gonna toss it into the surf near a tower and come back two days later and look for it and see where it goes ? :?:

Too funny - I think EVERYONE should start throwing their rings into the surf to test these theories........ no strings though.......... that will ruin the tests....
 
As others have said, it may or may not move- more cross sectional area = more likely to move. But theres just too many variables to say for sure with what youve given us to work with. But if it does move along the beach (with no storms/storm waves/etc), then it went south (seeing how you are in socal and that's the driving direction of longshore drift there).

As SD said, unless someone took a pic of the location of the loss, you really aren't sure where to start. I'd start where they say, then circle out as much as water conditions allow, then work south after you feel that it has been captured by longshore drift.

fwiw, I am a retired geologist and one of the things we studied in school is particle movement of all sizes. Now this doesn't help me as a detectorist as much as I'd like as its pretty general, but it does help get a gross idea of whats happening.
 
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