After wildfires.

Charcoal? While I know carbon can be a conductor, as in the center of a battery or in a carbon pile, it is Much more condensed than it could ever be in charcoal. I've never noticed a problem myself, but I've only detected just a few burned areas. As I said before, the possibility intrigues me & I'll have to test in areas with differing ages since a burn. I might even dig out my old 80's era detector too & see if it's affected. The problem might also have something to do with how you set up your unit whether or not you have manual or automatic ground balance. By the way, I currently use a White's MXT & used to use an old Teknetics. And w6pea is right about growth, it comes back in much faster than you'd expect & different than before.

Hi guys, thought I'd jump in with both feet & share my ideas on this. While it might be technically posible to change "mineral composition" with fire, it is highly improbable in the way you mention. It would take Very high heat that would have to cause minerals to combine like an alloy or give off a part of themselves & morph a little denser. (for you true mineral/metal techies out there - I know this is a little vague & not near as technical as you could be) Let me give you an example of my personal experience. I hunt in an area that had an extremely hot fire a few years ago. (I was in there shortly after the fire) It burned so hot large trees looked exactly like giant burned matchsticks standing upright. It was so hot it not only burned off All the sluff on the ground, no matter how thick, it also burned All the loose soil/dirt off the ground!! All that was left to the eye was sand & gravel. But even that hot, there was No glass formed from the sand & No mineral change to the ground. However, and here's the big thing for changes in a burn area, a couple months after the big burn a big rain came through. It changed the landscape, sometimes drastically & it changed where all the concetrations of Any loose minerals or materials were. (I was in there shortly after the flooding rains too) For a little while we were able to detect for turn of the century stuff much easier. (no nuggets in this particular area) But after awhile the forest began to retake it with thick & sometimes different growth. If there had been changes to mineral composition, it would have caused just as many problems in looking for the other metal type items we looked for as it would looking for gold. Before new growth muscles you out of your search area, you need to look at the lay of the land & see where light or heavy erosion forces would've moved things around a bit. That should keep you successful in your spot :-) Something else to consider: If the burn & perhaps following erosion caused changes in distribution - then the slopes will technically be thinner in places, possibly allowing your detector to "see" nuggets that were to deep for it before or have moved down from someplace else. (so remember to re-search areas you've detected in the past) Also remember to keep an eye on ground balance as that shifting & reconcentrating will happen with the minerals that throw your ground balance off too. In my mind, various mineral Concentration has more to do with how the detector acts than mineral composition. (yes techies, I know composition does too). All that said, If it is possible for a forest fire to somehow change mineral composition, I'd like to be shown as it intrigues me. I don't get on here as much as most so congratulations - You've just become my most involved post on here since I joined :-) Glenn

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srferjo714 May 19, 2009 at 2:12am

One word "charcoal". Charcoal is the enemy of PI detectors it will act like heavy mineralization. I am not sure what it will do too a VLF.
- Glenn Crawford > srferjo714 May 19, 2009 at 3:23am
  
  Charcoal? While I know carbon can be a conductor, as in the center of a battery or in a carbon pile, it is Much more condensed than it could ever be in charcoal. I've never noticed a problem myself, but I've only detected just a few burned areas. As I said before, the possibility intrigues me & I'll have to test in areas with differing ages since a burn. I might even dig out my old 80's era detector too & see if it's affected. The problem might also have something to do with how you set up your unit whether or not you have manual or automatic ground balance. By the way, I currently use a White's MXT & used to use an old Teknetics. And w6pea is right about growth, it comes back in much faster than you'd expect & different than before.
- scottnugget > Glenn Crawford May 19, 2009 at 4:01pm
  
  I have a VLF and it seemed to be affected a bit by the mineralization. You always get new growth after a fire, but I'm not detecting the new growth.
Glenn Crawford May 14, 2009 at 11:46pm

Hi guys, thought I'd jump in with both feet & share my ideas on this. While it might be technically posible to change "mineral composition" with fire, it is highly improbable in the way you mention. It would take Very high heat that would have to cause minerals to combine like an alloy or give off a part of themselves & morph a little denser. (for you true mineral/metal techies out there - I know this is a little vague & not near as technical as you could be) Let me give you an example of my personal experience. I hunt in an area that had an extremely hot fire a few years ago. (I was in there shortly after the fire) It burned so hot large trees looked exactly like giant burned matchsticks standing upright. It was so hot it not only burned off All the sluff on the ground, no matter how thick, it also burned All the loose soil/dirt off the ground!! All that was left to the eye was sand & gravel. But even that hot, there was No glass formed from the sand & No mineral change to the ground. However, and here's the big thing for changes in a burn area, a couple months after the big burn a big rain came through. It changed the landscape, sometimes drastically & it changed where all the concetrations of Any loose minerals or materials were. (I was in there shortly after the flooding rains too) For a little while we were able to detect for turn of the century stuff much easier. (no nuggets in this particular area) But after awhile the forest began to retake it with thick & sometimes different growth. If there had been changes to mineral composition, it would have caused just as many problems in looking for the other metal type items we looked for as it would looking for gold. Before new growth muscles you out of your search area, you need to look at the lay of the land & see where light or heavy erosion forces would've moved things around a bit. That should keep you successful in your spot :-) Something else to consider: If the burn & perhaps following erosion caused changes in distribution - then the slopes will technically be thinner in places, possibly allowing your detector to "see" nuggets that were to deep for it before or have moved down from someplace else. (so remember to re-search areas you've detected in the past) Also remember to keep an eye on ground balance as that shifting & reconcentrating will happen with the minerals that throw your ground balance off too. In my mind, various mineral Concentration has more to do with how the detector acts than mineral composition. (yes techies, I know composition does too). All that said, If it is possible for a forest fire to somehow change mineral composition, I'd like to be shown as it intrigues me. I don't get on here as much as most so congratulations - You've just become my most involved post on here since I joined :-) Glenn
- w6pea > Glenn Crawford May 16, 2009 at 12:32am
  
  I bet you could go back there today and there is probably a lot of new growth. Probably a bit of new ground cover.
  Just my thoughts.

This reply was deleted.

Nugget Shooters

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