Uses

Uses

[edit] Archaeology

In England and Wales metal detecting is legal provided that permission is granted by the landowner, and that the area is not a Scheduled Ancient Monument a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) or covered by elements of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. Items discovered which fall within the definition of Treasure ^[4] must be reported to the Coroner or a place designated by the Coroner for Treasure. The voluntary reporting of finds which do not qualify as Treasure to the Portable Antiquities Scheme or the UK Detector Finds Database is encouraged.

The situation in Scotland is very different. Under the Scots law principle of bona vacantia, the Crown has claim over any object of any material value where the original owner cannot be traced.^[5] There is also no 300 year limit to Scottish finds. Any artifact found, whether by metal detector survey or from an archaeological excavation, must be reported to the Crown through the Treasure Trove Advisory Panel at the National Museums of Scotland. The Panel then determines what will happen to the artifacts. Reporting is not voluntary, and failure to report the discovery of historic artifacts is a criminal offence in Scotland.

[edit] As a hobby

This 156 ounce nugget was found by an individual prospector in the Southern California Desert using a metal detector

There are six major types of hobbyist activities involving metal detectors:

• Coin shooting is looking for coins after an event involving many people, like a baseball game, or simply looking for any old coins. Serious coin shooters will spend hours, days and months doing historical research to locate long lost sites that have the potential to give up historical and collectible coins.
• Prospecting is looking for valuable metals like gold and silver in their natural forms, such as nuggets or flakes.
• Relic hunting is very similar to coin shooting except that the relic hunter is after any type of historical artifact. Relic hunters are usually very determined and dedicated not only to the research and hunting that they do but also to preserving historical artifacts. Coins, bullets, buttons, axe heads, and buckles are just a few of the items that are commonly found by relic hunters.
• Treasure hunting is looking for valuable items in general.
• Beach combing is hunting for lost coins or jewelry on a beach. Beach hunting can be as simple or as complicated as one wishes to make it. Many dedicated beach hunters also familiarize themselves with tide movements and beach erosion. There are two main techniques for beach hunting. The first one is called "gridding", which is when you search in a pattern. For example, you start from the beach line, and work your way down to the shoreline, move to the side a little, and repeat the process. The next technique is called "Random searching". Random searching is when you walk around the beach in no particular pattern, hoping to cover more ground.
• Metal detecting clubs across the United States, United Kingdom and Canada exist for hobbyists to learn from others, show off finds from their hunts and to learn more about the hobby.

[edit] Security screening

Metal detectors at an airport

A series of aircraft hijackings led the Finnish company Outokumpu to adapt mining metal detectors^[when?], still housed in a large cylindrical pipe, to the purpose of screening airline passengers as they walked through. The development of these systems continued in a spin off company and systems branded as Metor Metal Detectors evolved in the form of the rectangular gantry now standard in airports. In common with the developments in other uses of metal detectors both alternating current and pulse systems are used, and the design of the coils and the electronics has moved forward to improve the discrimination of these systems. In 1995 systems such as the Metor 200 appeared with the ability to indicate the approximate height of the metal object above the ground, enabling security personnel to more rapidly locate the source of the signal. Smaller hand held metal detectors are also used to locate a metal object on a person more precisely.

[edit] Industrial metal detectors

Industrial metal detectors are used in the pharmaceutical, food, beverage, textile, garment, plastics, chemicals, lumber, and packaging industries.
Contamination of food by metal shards from broken processing machinery during the manufacturng process is a major safety issue in the food industry. Metal detectors for this purpose are widely used and integrated into the production line.
Current practice at garment or apparel industry plants is to apply metal detecting after the garments are completely sewn and before garments are packed to check whether there is any metal contamination (needle, broken needle, etc) in the garments. This needs to be done for safety reasons.