Spent $450 on a ground penetrating radar rental for a dig site in Ohio, turned up zero buried structures

I was so sure we'd find traces of that old settlement, but the GPR just showed plain soil. What a waste of money on what felt like a sure thing. Has anyone else had a pricey tool fail them on a dig?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_reese6d ago

Heard a pretty interesting take on this from a geoarchaeology podcast a few weeks back. They were saying that GPR can fail hard if the soil has too much clay or rocks, which is basically half of Ohio. The waves just scatter and you get a jumbled mess on the screen instead of anything useful. The host mentioned that a lot of folks don't realize your site needs pretty specific conditions for it to work right. Maybe your spot just had the wrong dirt for the tool to do its job.

charles_kim7d ago

Four hundred fifty bucks is a lot but it's just one tool on one day. Sometimes you miss and that's fine, it doesn't mean the whole dig was a waste.