What Mercury on the Beach could point to Spanish Galleons!

[SniperR27]

The likelihood of this being from the wreck of a Spanish galleon or a WW2 ship is about zero. Unlike a coin, which although made of a dense metal, is a discrete solid object with a high surface are to weight ratio and could be picked up and carried by the upthrusts of water that will occur during storm conditions, mercury as a dense liquid immiscible with water will react totally differently.
Mercury is a very dense liquid and droplets will always run to the lowest point and form a pool, the droplets merging together. However, on any significant disturbance, let alone the violent disturbances that will occur due to wave action, the mercury will break apart into large numbers of individual droplets again, many smaller than pin heads.
Whereas the coin will due to its high surface area / weight ratio be bouyed up in the water and held aloft almost like a kite, small mercury droplets will always invariably seek out the eddies / countercurrents that will allow it to fall back to the sea floor at the earliest opportunity.
Even in the extremely unlikely event that globules of mercury made it from 30ft of water onto a beach, they would be so fine and so widely dispersed that the probability, again, of forming a sizeable pool about zero.
Any pool of mercury found on a beach is going to be pretty close to, or directly downhill from where it was tipped out of a container

So what your saying is you agree with me then!

[Tomcat-uk]

Unless of course it drifted ashore in a container that has rotted away slowly over time....
TC

[Al(GA)]

Mercury is found (native) along with the mineral "Cinnabar" and unless that mineral is present in the location (mines, etc.) it was probably brought in by flasks and spilled. Even the Romans used it, so it could date back a long time ago.In the past, I have used it for gold prospecting (as have many miners), because it attaches to gold (removing gold from black sands) and then we burn off the mercury to extract clean gold. The fumes are "extremely harmful" and shouldn't be tried by the novice. To learn more about cinnabar/mercury here is a Wikepedia lhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnabarink" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Al

[onlyonegazza]

just been reading your posts and after realizing how toxic mercurey is , surely that part of the beach must be deadly at the moment,is it roped off!
the environment agency must find the source of the spill or people could get poisoned !

[excavator]

The likelihood of this being ....

So what your saying is you agree with me then!

.... Uh! I guess so

As for the beach being deadly at the moment - ever heard of Health & Safety gone mad? Mercury is toxic, sure. But so are plenty of other things. Personally, I think the authority's reaction to it is totally OTT. But that's just my opinion

[onlyonegazza]

i started a thread the other day about old sailing ships and some of the blokes put up some good replies.there are some links showing records of all the old sailing ships that have come to grief and where it happend,perhapse you could have a look and see if a ship is near the spill !

[Peasgood]

Might be worth checking if there is anyone called John Connor living nearby too.

[COLFISH]

The mercury on Worthing beach was found just below high tide line on a fairly big tide, it was either washed ashore in a container and broken by the stones? or it was dumped by some idiot. I didn't find any container but that could of washed away. It remains a mystery!!!! The council states that there was roughly a 'jam jar full' , that was my prediction when i found it. Incidently there was a further six high tides before it was removed, I'm surprised that it wasn't all washed away... Still like the idea of a sunken spanish galleon!!

[Christoph1945]

Christo

Just look at Oddessey Marine cost them $2 million and the Spanish Gov took all $500 million they recovered at their own cost... Somehow I think it is funny that NO more Spanish ships have been found in like three years since the court case started.... I wonder why??
LOL
TC

What about the laws of salvage? Don't the Spanish recognise those?

[Trotboy]

Just look at Oddessey Marine cost them $2 million and the Spanish Gov took all $500 million they recovered at their own cost... Somehow I think it is funny that NO more Spanish ships have been found in like three years since the court case started.... I wonder why??
What about the laws of salvage? Don't the Spanish recognise those?

What about the fact that the Spanish had stolen the resources from latin america? Surely if anyone has a right to it, it should be the country from which the resource was stolen in the first place, not the Spanish?

[Tomcat-uk]

No the Spanish does not recognize any other laws than their own greed Sorry to say the Latin American country where the gold and silver was mined did enter a claim on it as well but the USA Judge denied their claim.
It is all in the court papers and most on the Internet just google it.
So I guess from now on their will be no more Spanish wrecks found... Ever again hehehehehe serves them right!

Also the law says after 100 years you have abandoned your property if you are not actively looking for it... I wonder why that was over ruled by the USA Judge?
And NO it was not Judge Judy!
TC

[Christoph1945]

Mmm, I have some thoughts on that matter but they may get me banned from this site for Antiamericanism if I should air them. Best not!

Chris

[onlyonegazza]

The mercury on Worthing beach was found just below high tide line on a fairly big tide, it was either washed ashore in a container and broken by the stones? or it was dumped by some idiot. I didn't find any container but that could of washed away. It remains a mystery!!!! The council states that there was roughly a 'jam jar full' , that was my prediction when i found it. Incidently there was a further six high tides before it was removed, I'm surprised that it wasn't all washed away... Still like the idea of a sunken spanish galleon!!

well done for finding and reporting the stuff.
what do you think happend, i've never heard of such a thing before!