That $40 ground penetrating radar app was a total scam

Downloaded it for an excavation site I was surveying near Tulsa. Wanted to map out possible buried structures before we started digging. Spent two hours walking the grid with my phone like an idiot. Got a bunch of colorful blobs that supposedly showed underground features. Dug three test pits where the app said stuff was. Found nothing but clay and roots. Anyone else get burned by those fake archaeology apps promising gold detection?

3 comments

3 Comments

nora11025d ago

My buddy from the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey tried that exact same app on a site near McAlester... he walked around for like an hour with his phone held out in front of him. The app showed these big red blobs right where he thought a old homestead foundation might be. They dug three shovel tests and hit nothing but solid clay and a few rocks. He was so embarrassed he didn't tell his supervisor for a week.

phoenixb3425d ago

@nora110 That's rough lol. Did your buddy ever try to figure out what the app was actually picking up on? Could have been some kind of iron deposit in the clay, or maybe even an old piece of farm equipment buried deeper than they dug. I've seen those apps light up over random trash piles before, makes you wonder how many people are out there digging holes based on nothing but a phone glitch. Three shovel tests is a lot of wasted effort though, especially with solid clay. Did he at least grab a screenshot of the app display before they backfilled?

grace8921d ago

And another thing nobody's mentioned yet - those apps aren't even using real ground penetrating radar. Phones don't have the hardware for that. The app's probably just using your phone's magnetometer to detect magnetic fields. So it's picking up random surface junk, not anything underground. @phoenixb34 said something about iron deposits in clay, which tracks. That clay around Tulsa has enough iron in it to set off a regular compass, let alone a cheap app. So you're basically walking around with a glorified metal detector that can't even tell depth. Three test pits is rough, but honestly the app was never going to show you anything real anyway.