I was going through Facebook the other day and came across someone’s theory that coins get buried due to organic matter such as leafs, plants and grass breaking down and over time covering them up. I on the other hand strongly believe that things tend to sink in the ground. After many exchanges back and forth we agreed to disagree. Since then I’ve been doing some research and I have not been able to find any definitive proof of how our coins and relics end up in the ground rather than on top.
Organic Matter Theory
Personally I believe this theory is very simple to dismiss. If organic matter builds up at such a rate that a coin can be buried in the ground a few inches in just a few years then why aren’t houses that are two hundred years old and much older buried under all of this organic material? Some would suggest because lawns are manicured well isn’t mowing the lawn and leaving your clipping adding to that organic material? What about leaves that fall? Most people who live in the country do not bag their clipping nor do they rake theirs leafs yet I’ve never seen an old house that is buried.
I installed a fence twenty years ago that the back of it is just feet away from a creek that is lined with trees. The chain link was roughly a quarter of an inch from touching the ground back then and amazingly it still is even though the grass gets cut, leafs pile up and never get hauled away, at most they get cut up with the mower yet that chain link is still not touching the ground.
Metal detecting for over 20 years I have done my fair share of metal detecting in the woods. On many occasions I have found coins and relics just below the surface. I remember a hunt where I found 11 silver coins at an old boy scout camp in one day. Not one of those coins was over 2 inches deep. One quarter from the 1930’s I literally scraped my foot across the ground and there it was. Organic matter is going to build up in the woods much quicker than anywhere else I imagine so if these coins were at least lost by the 1950’s shouldn’t they be buried really deep if people are suggesting modern clad is covered up by grass clipping up to a few inches in just a few years? So if I think coins and relics sink then why isn’t it happening as much in wooded areas? I believe this is because of the roots from trees and vegetation keeping the coins closer to the surface.
The Sinking Theory
My opinion is coins literally sink in the ground just like many other things do. There is a huge business to fix sinking foundations. Some would say “it’s caused from foundations settling” well what causes them to settle? Water, freezing, thawing and the ground shifting so they are literally sinking. I know of someone who just last year cleared out an old junk yard that went from about the 1940’s to early 1960’s. There were roughly 80 cars in it and there had never been any kind of flooding on the property yet some of those cars were buried up to a few feet! I was hunting a private property just two years back and took a break to go look at the old cemetery that is no longer taken care of by anyone other than the land owner who simply mows it. Walking around you will find headstones sinking into the ground at different depths. Some just a few inches while other several inches deep yet others seem perfectly fine. If that was from organic matter building up they should all be slightly buried and at the same level… at least that’s my opinion.
I have also noticed that in most cases things seem to only sink so far. A good example is a fairgrounds I used to hunt that I pulled out just over 40 silver coins over a 3 year period. They ranged from the 1830’s to the 1960’s although I believe I only found one silver Roosevelt. All of those coins were 6-8 inches deep. I found seated at 6 inches deep and Mercury dimes at 8 yet the clay layer was well beyond that. Although I do not have a real theory all I can guess is it has to have something to do with the ground freezing and thawing but that is just a guess.
I am very curious as to what others believe. I would appreciate others feedback and theories!
I believe in the sinking theory.i work on a farm and we can lay water pipe on the ground within 2 years it is usually buried
I believe it is a combination of both, plus a couple of other factors. Leaves and debris do deteriorate and form a biomass layer, the oft cited amount is about 1/16th of an inch per year, according to the theory of covered up.
You need to take into consideration the footprint of the object and shape as well. A house, on piers puts the entire weight of the structure on a small footprint. That in turn causes the piers to sink, at different rates. A large rock beneath a pier may stop it from settling any more than it has. Water presence will increase the sinking rate.
If you remember, the colonial settlers in this country used to chip crevasses in large boulders and mud the ends on natural crevasses and pour water in them in the winter, so when it froze, the water expanded and broke the boulder down to smaller pieces., making it easier to remove.
Same happens in the ground. Here is Texas, in the summer, you can have large cracks a foot deep, and sometimes coins fall down those cracks.
I also happen to believe that minor tremors and vibrations move coins around, but that is a complicated issue….A GREAT example is your house shaking when a lightning strike is close by. The resulting thunder shakes your house. Now think in terms of a Tuning Fork. You strike one side, and the whole fork resonates.
I believe when your house shakes from that thunder clap, it “Shakes” the ground. Same for high wind in trees. I believe they respond and move at the root level, the tree acting like a lever, resulting in vibrations in the ground. Have you ever seen someone apply a saw to a stake driven in the ground and fiddle up earthworms? The vibrations do that.
So, in times of rain, when the soil is wet, or dry, vibrations that pass through the soil move a coin. Just a theory, but I believe it to be right…..might be fun to try that…..ok TIA.
Good comment, bro… if I may add a couple more thing to your list…. I have noted when working old house sites with the yards and walks and houses still intact, in the older sections of towns like Dallas and Cincinnati, that often the yard will be as much as 3 inches higher than the walk from the street to the house. All one has to do is look at where the walk meets the street and where it meets the front porch of the house to see that it has NOT sunk… the YARD soil has built up over the years from organic matter from cuttings turning into soil. So, any coins lost in the early years after the house was built, 50 or more years later have had that new soil added on top to make them deeper than they were, regardless of sinkage.
I was told by a very successful coin hunter in Florida where almost all of the soil in the southern parts is basically sand that to get to the old coins most of the time, he had to hunt construction sites where the top 18″ had been removed by dozing in preparation for the new buildings planned for the site. Again, those old coins had to get that deep by a combination of sinkage and soil build-up on top of them. At the battlefield of Jenkins Ferry Arkansas, we routinely dug fired and dropped bullets at depths of 18″ to 23″. The alluvial soil has a lot of sand in it and the river bottom where we did this was flooded at the time of the battle about 2′ deep. The soldiers feet sunk a foot into what was basically muck as they moved about on the battlefield pushing many of the bullets down that deep and then time did the rest.
There is NO simple yea or nay answer to the question of whether coins sink or don’t sink… as you skillfully brought out… there are a number of factors that govern whether or not that happens. It is a given that when water is present, metals heavier than the surrounding gravel, sand, soil, etc. will sink as far as possible until they come to rest on a denser material like hard clay or bedrock… anyone who has hunted gold nuggets is aware of this.
depth of coins in ground is about vibration and type of ground they are in. they will sink deeper in sandy soil and not so deep in say clay type soils. a coin hitting an object such as a piece of stone, root or anything else will slow its depth. by vibration i mean just the natural vibration of the earth, lightning strikes, trees falling, traffic, lawn mowers, it goes on. also if a coin is forced flatdown or on edge affects how fast it will sink. initially grass roots can get the depth thing going but after that it is all about vibration. the best example is probably gold panning where you shake the pan to get the heavies to the bottom.
This question has always bugged me. How can you find clad quarters, 1990’s ish 6″ down. I think it is the natural wetting and drying affects that open cracks and the coins fall in. they penetrate less dense surface layers until they hit the denser underlying layers and stop. I have noted on several old house sites that indian heads and buffalo nickels generally are found 8 to 10″ deep so they must slow down the deeper they go. just a thought.
I live in Northern Wisconsin. You have to put posts in 4’ deep to get below the frost line. Frost will push rocks, roots, foundations….you name it, upwards. There are always rocks popping up around fields here where frost upheaval brings them closer to the surface.
What about earthworms and rodents like moles moving around underground.? They will mix up the soils and heavy objects will move down over time.
Roots from trees are always growing. A coin on top of a root can’t move down and as the root gets larger in diameter will “push” the coin upwards. If the coin is below the root the diameter of the root increasing will “push” the coin down.
Soil erosion wind and water will remove soil/sand from above the object making it closer to the surface.
I’m sure that riding lawnmowers can push metal objects down into the ground a little over time. What about the vibration from them?
I’m sure there are other factors as well such as organic material buildup creating more soil, etc. I’ve found old wheat pennies just under the leaves 1/3” into the “duff” layer in an area just off a walking path through a defunct campground.