How does ground mineralisation affect metal detecting? Mineralised soil can be a metal detector’s worst nightmare, it can cause much frustration and confusion for some metal detector hobbyists all over the world.

Ground mineralisation is the amount of magnetism in the soil due to particles in the soil having the characteristics of metal and producing a magnetic response when using a metal detector.

Very old soil exposed to surface conditions for a long time are most highly often mineralised soils. This is caused by rainwater forcing iron compounds to move to the grounds surfaces. New soils created by erosions and rivers are low in mineralisation. This is most often found in parks and gardens. Very highly mineralised soil is very red in colour.

Certain minerals in soils can affect some metal detectors and can cause you some fake signals due to the metal detector picking up minerals in the soil rather than a target. Such soils make it difficult to separate god targets from the soil and reduces the depth the metal detector can reliably reach.

Unfortunately, gold is usually found in such harsh conditions like what you would find hunting for gold in a country like Zimbabwe but you can get specially designed metal detectors that have all the latest technologies to overcome this ground mineral interference. But fortunately for most hobby detectors when detecting in parks and open fields mineralisation does not become a problem. But some tough conditions can be found in and around South Africa.

Many metal detectors come with a manual or have an automatic ground balance. The metal detector with the coil placed on the ground or pumped up and down when holding in a specific button allows the metal detector to pick up the ground mineralisation.

Some metal detectors use pulse induction technology which is better able to cope with mineralization and often ignores it completely as compared to the beat frequency type which can often struggle especially on very entry-level machines. 

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