Ground Penetrating Radar

[glacialerratic]

In the spirit of Pleecan's posts on innovative tools for hunting fossils, while we northerners while away the winter hours, I thought perhaps sonar might be something to use on the Arkona shale.

Other than units for fishing, I have no knowledge of this stuff. I googled, and came up with this site:

Ground Penetrating Radar Systems

Unfortunately, you have to hire their services (they have an office in Detroit). But, I wonder if there are other ground penetrating units, or sonar that might work.

Anybody ever heard of this stuff being used in paleontology?

Just curious,

Tim

[tracer]

seems like data interpretation involves some degree of voodoo. also, apparently the sensing really isn't "radar" in the traditional sense but more like electro-magnetometry, which make it ineffective in certain substrates.

here's a link illustrating the use and results in various applications, including finding dinosaur tracks - link

[TourmalineGuy]

I know that GPR has been used on pegmatites to find gem mineral deposits. link But, the nature of a gem pocket is significantly different than the surrounding rocks. Unless you're looking for very large fossils in a very uniform strata...Perhaps it would be useful in locating large masses of fossils, but it is very difficult to interpret the data, as tracer suggested. But, in the right place it might be worth experimenting with.

[pleecan]

Interesting GPR Thread Tim... thanks for posting.... PL

[Mike Owens]

Interesting idea. The only application I know of is finding old settlements where there are foundation remains that show up.

[pleecan]

A lot of GPR is used in archaeology... image anomalies in the ground ie hollow cavities in the ground = burial chambers etc...... maybe it can be used to map out buried dino bones of articulated skeletons... to give direction where to dig.... just a thought. PL

[pleecan]

Well Tim, ground penetrating radar will be deployed by American Museum of Natural History to hunt for NJ Cretaceous Amber deposits (from a source close to the action).

Peter

[Smaug]

Why should an amateur collector use GPR? The only thing you might achieve is finding more with less effort. It might look interesting but will it not take away a lot of the experience of being in the field and searching with your own senses?

[crinus]

I know that GPR has been used on pegmatites to find gem mineral deposits. link But, the nature of a gem pocket is significantly different than the surrounding rocks. Unless you're looking for very large fossils in a very uniform strata...Perhaps it would be useful in locating large masses of fossils, but it is very difficult to interpret the data, as tracer suggested. But, in the right place it might be worth experimenting with.

If this is correct, then it might work in the Arkona Shale. Crinoids in the shale occur in rather large pockets. The rest of the shale is pretty much devoid of anything else. In addition, the crinoids are pyritized. So, would you see something. Even if it is not clear, at least it would mean DIG HERE.

crinus

[TourmalineGuy]

I did some research a few years back about using it, because I dig for gem pockets in pegmatites...the uses are somewhat limited but from your description it sounds useful for that. It would have to be tested and it would still take a lot of work to properly interpret the data you get back from the GPR. My guess is that the pockets of pyritized crinoids would show up well in a uniform shale...but I never got the chance to use the GPR. Sounds like a fun experiment...

If this is correct, then it might work in the Arkona Shale. Crinoids in the shale occur in rather large pockets. The rest of the shale is pretty much devoid of anything else. In addition, the crinoids are pyritized. So, would you see something. Even if it is not clear, at least it would mean DIG HERE.

crinus