Ground Mineralization & Hot Rocks

At times very extreme ground mineralization acts like a hot rock. It will seem as if you are balanced to the general ground, but then you will come across a heavy patch of black sand under the ground. This will cause the threshold of the detector to change and it will need to get ground balanced again. If sensitivity is reduced and the loop is raised a little bit off of the ground when balancing and searching the job will be done more efficiently. This same problem will occur when a hot patch of bedrock is trying to be worked such as in the case of green serpentine and patches of clay will do the same. These are actually simply working as big hot rocks but we know they are there and are able to handle them easily by adjusting the ground balance. It cannot be expected they go away or for the detector to ignore them. Tracking detectors as well as manual tuning detectors can be used in these types of areas. There is in addition another bothersome problem. These consist of little amounts of salt or alkali deposits that are normally encountered in the desert Southwest areas. These patches at times have the aspect of salt and pepper and cause the detector to have a chatter to it. When this occurs it means the detector is sensing the difference in the degree of ground balance that is needed in order to cancel iron mineralization in the ground and the actual quantity of mineralization in the salt deposit. The salt, which is the opposite of the iron in the ground, lets out a signal as if it were a target. In dry ground, the small salt rocks provide an aggravating unevenness to the threshold hum. This can be taken care of though by bring down the sensitivity and trying to get an average ground adjustment. Working with the loop a little bit further above the ground can also be useful. In occasions in which the ground is wet, this can turn into a very big problem. This can cause the salt to dissolve and melt into one big signal. This is something difficult to balance out and the only thing that can be done is to reduce the sensitivity.