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Originally posted by goldfinder
The ionic activity in the ground occurs when the ground is damp or wet. This condition promotes the movement of the ions and allows the complexes to dissolve in the ground water or dampness of the soil.
If you recall, dampness does not support static charges. in damp soil, we could expect any static charge that begins to build to quickly move in the conductive soil and become neutral charge.
There is an exception... for completely dry sand. Hot, dry blow sand in a desert can be a good insulator if it is not mineralised, and could retain a static charge, as well as allow buried objects to retain some charge.
But this is a relatively rare condition to be found except in a few locations where dry non-conductive sand is found.
But most soil is damp and has some degree of mineralisation and lots of chemical reactions occurring at the same time.
In these conditions, a static charge anomaly cannot build below the ground. So I expect any column of gold ions to have the same static charge as the surrounding soil.
To clarify, the gold ions do have an unbalanced charge when looking only at the gold atom.
But remember there is a cyanide complex molecule which has the counterbalancing charge associated with each gold atom, so the net charge is zero.
It is possible for these dissolved gold ions to leave their cyanide complex molecule and find another to attach to, but this does not represent any net charge to the ion column.
If for some reason a charge began to build, it would quickly dissipate in the conductive soil.
We can see the nature of subterranean soil does not permit detecting a large static charge, but what can we detect?
The concentration of ions is in the low parts per trillion, but the column can be sizable.
Let us suppose there is a box full of coins that measures 12 inches square and 6 inches tall buried 4 feet deep.
We have 1/2 cubic feet of treasures, but we have 4 cubic feet of ion column.
Of course we cannot measure this weak ion solution from a distance, but lets look at some secondary geophysical forces that are known to exist that could show an anomaly...
The ground is expected to be more conductive where an ion solution is located, so we expect a conductivity anomaly.
If you recall, there is a voltage gradient in the atmosphere that measures about 100-200 volts per each meter of altitude, with the earth being negative, and the ionosphere being positive.
The air in between is the dielectric (insulator) which does actually leak current a little.
Scientists have found there is an average leakage current of 6000 amps worth of electrons moving from the earth to the ionosphere on the earth at any one time.
This current should show an anomaly in the air above where the ground is more conductive.
We would expect the leakage current to be more in these areas, and we would expect the voltage gradient in the air to be less above this column of ions.
We also know that any telluric currents flowing will favour the area of the ion column, as it is more conductive than the surrounding soil.
But how much of an anomaly will we have when the concentration of ions is only a few parts per trillion?
Will any of these secondary effects be measurable?
We can only know this by testing an area of long time buried treasure.
We could check the ground resistivity to see if the ion column showed an anomaly in soil resistivity.
We could also check for VLF ground absorption to see if the more conductive area of the ion column was absorbing more VLF.
This would be checked in the same manner as a geologist conducts his VLF survey to find subterranean rock formations.
We could also check to see if any "ground battery" anomaly existed in the area of the ion column.
The ions in the electrolyte are exactly what defines a battery electrolyte.
We may find there is a current flowing if we put stakes in the ground at the column and at some of the surrounding ground.
We could check for the stable nuclide of gold with a scintillating gamma counter.
Because the ion column is so much larger than the buried treasure, it represents a much larger volume of gold-bearing soil which is more likely to show a larger incidence of naturally occurring au(197) which can be measured using a scintillator in a survey of the area.
In fact, this method has been used for more than 35 years to successfully locate large gold deposits as well as deposits of other buried minerals.
These are only a few of the methods I can think of that may prove to be useful if they are developed to get a clear enough signal from the gold or the ionised ground so it can be detected above the noise that exists in the ground and the atmosphere.
As far as artificial electronic stimulation, let's look at natural electronic stimulation first:
Every time lightning strikes within a few hundred miles of a location, the lightning event can be detected using VLF or ELF receivers.
A lightning storm usually sends electrons the opposite direction from where it usually leaks naturally from the ground to the ionosphere.
So the lightning is replenishing the lost electrons that leak to the atmosphere.
But when lightning strikes, we can expect some consequence to any ionic chemical activity in the ground.
Perhaps a sudden jolt of lightning would cause a number of the ions to dissociate from their cyanide complex for some short duration, then return.
Or perhaps a lightning event would cause a sudden increase in the gold corroding from the surface of the buried object.
If enough ions were involved in this short duration jolt of activity, it could be a measurable event.
We also know there are telluric currents flowing beneath the surface, which vary over a 24 hour cycle.
These currents would have a direct effect on the ions that we can expect to promote ionic activity, and possibly become part of the electronic circuit that helps to corrode buried metals.
How to measure these secondary effects remotely?
I can't answer that.
But I can say I expect the strongest of secondary effects to be difficult to measure because they are so weak that they will be competing with natural background noise.
But more important, how to create artificial electronic disturbance...
You could send an artificial lightning bolt to mimic what nature does, but I don't know this would accomplish any useful signals.
You could also send some RF to the ground.
VLF from a few KHz up to maybe 300 KHz would be able to penetrate the ground to the depths you would find most of the treasures you would dig as a hobbyist.
Maybe the VLF could stimulate the ionic activity to make it become more prominent and easier to detect some kind of signal than when there is no VLF directed at the column of ions.
We remember a number of LRL enthusiasts telling us the "phenomenon" associated with long time buried metals is temporarily destroyed by sweeping a metal detector over the ground where the metal is buried.
And we know these metal detectors are operating in the VLF range which produces RF as well as a magnetic field.
Is it possible that the hand-held pistol VLF coils are sending a much weaker dose of VLF to a larger area of ground in front of the coil than a regular metal detector scrubbing the ground?
Could this weaker dose of VLF be increasing the ionic activity to the point that it can be measured above the noise floor?
I presented these ideas only as a little food for thought, since I don't see any hope of finding a static charge beneath the ground surface.
Maybe something I said will give you an idea that might result in an improved remote gold detector.
Best wishes,
J_P
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