Serious question, I found a weird way to spot a buried wall that actually worked

I was helping on a dig near Tucson last month and we were totally stuck trying to find the edge of an old adobe structure in this super dry, cracked soil. On a whim, I started looking for lines where the morning dew dried up just a little bit faster than the ground around it, and it actually outlined the buried wall almost perfectly. Has anyone else used something like soil moisture or plant growth to find features when the usual methods weren't cutting it?

2 comments

2 Comments

caleb_gibson2d ago

Heard of using frost patterns to find old roads, same idea?

webb.derek2d ago

Yeah, exactly. Frost melts faster over buried pavement, so you get these weird lines in the grass. Works best right at sunrise.