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Debate: Should we use ground penetrating radar or just dig test pits first?
My professor told me to skip the GPR at the Johnson Creek site because it was too expensive, but we dug 20 test pits and found nothing while a team nearby used radar and hit a midden in 2 days. Was that bad advice or just bad luck with our soil conditions? Anyone else had GPR save them time or was it a waste of cash?
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finley72919d ago
Dude wait, 20 test pits and nothing?! That's brutal. I'd be so ticked off if I were you.
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Hold on, hold on. Didn't your prof say skip it because the soil there is that clay heavy stuff? That's the thing with GPR, it's not magic. If you've got the wrong ground, like wet clay or really rocky soil, the signal just bounces all over the place and you get nothing useful. So digging 20 holes might have been the smart call if the radar would have just given you a bunch of garbage data anyway. That other team hit a midden in 2 days, sure, but maybe they had sandy soil that's perfect for radar. You can't compare apples to oranges like that. Sometimes the old school way of digging is the only way when the ground fights back against the fancy tech.
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