There is no shame in digging Iron

My detector digs Iron !

How many times do we hear that phrase, and how many times have we said the very same thing in the past.

OK we all know the detector does not actually dig the Iron, but sometimes it gives us such a convincing signal that it can be blamed as the main offender that's for sure.

As said many times in the past, so many Iron targets can turn out to be items of interest, however in this short article I want to discuss the "why" side of things.
Hopefully this video at the end will answer a lot of questions

Sometimes a poor machine set up is to blame, very often people fall into the trap of using someone else's settings, that worked for them, possibly from a different part of the country, even the world. It is not un common to find custom settings unusable on your land, however sometimes if the Gods are smiling down you will be lucky, I am finding my new XP Deus 2 Tekkna program to be a good all rounder.

 

Here are 5 short facts about Iron :

1.Iron is the second most abundant metal on Earth. Aluminium is the most abundant.

2.Iron composes about 80% of the Earth's inner and outer cores.

3.Iron is the main component of meteorites.

4You cannot make steel without iron.

5.Around 70% of the iron in the human body is found in the haemoglobin of red blood cells.

So why do we have good days and bad days

 

Here is a scenario that happens to regular to be a fluke, let's visit our Sunday club, with 30 diggers, all with different machines (mostly XP I hope) Just thought I would throw that one in there.
The terrain is pasture and has not been ploughed for decades. The finds table is full of large mis-shaped Iron and mainly larger coins…..Why?

A week later, the same club with the same diggers (mostly XP again) but this time the ground has been recently ploughed, the finds table is filled with small and large pieces of lead, coins, buttons, and so on, the few Ferrous items are small round headed nails.

Pasture

Let's imagine a pasture field that has not been ploughed for over a century, it has seen cattle grazing on it for most of that time. What the animals eat, will eventually come out, and that contains high levels of Salt.
Imagine your large misshaped iron has been sat in the ground bathing in Salt for all that time, it is going to be in a right mess.
It would have badly oxidized and will now give a much bigger signature than when it was first dropped.

I firmly believe this is the main factor for the machine being confused, leading to digging deep Iron.

Find out more about Iron and how it confuses a metal detector here !