Maybe You Guys Can Answer This...

SC sawdaddy

A friend of mine is clearing some woods and digging a pond, the second on his place, and about 7 to 10 feet down he keeps running into old trees 10 to 12 inches in diameter buried in the mud. I'm thinking maybe cypress since they are solid all the way through. Its not fat lighter because it doesnt smell or burn like it. But it is definitly some kind of rot resistent wood to be buried for so long. The trees that are growing and being cut down for the pond are twenty to thirty years old, then theres that 8 ft. of dirt on top of them. We've talked before about it being an old stump hole that was filled in on top of logs but he has run into these logs on several places on his property at about the same depth. Sometimes they are lined up like someone laid out a row of them.
The geographic lay of the land is along a creek bottom in the sand hills of northern South Carolina. We're about 150 miles from the ocean but some fire barrel philosophy speculates that it may be a prehistoric log jam back when there was tidal pools up this far inland. I dont know about that, but it is a curiosity. Anybody got any thoughts?

tgeb

My thoughts are:

I doubt it is a prehistoric log jam.

I have excavated oak and poplar trees that had been buried in wet clay like material, and they were as solid as could be, and since it was a home site and we knew the age of the home we could estimate that the trees had been buried about 50 years.

It could be that someone wanted to change the direction or move the creek over and filled and covered this area for that purpose.

If your friend wants to continue with building the pond, and it is a prehistoric find, I wouldn't talk too much about it.

Just my thoughts.

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Tom

www.gebcon.com

ScipioAfricanus

Fine out what kind of wood it is. He might have a gold mine of old growth timber there.

Andy.

concretemasonry

Definitely see if the logs have some value.

Due to modern tree farming, quality wood is in rare supply and it could have value depending on the species and condition.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

SC sawdaddy

Thats what he is hoping. I suggested getting the couny agent out to look but I also agree with tgeb....he might not want to get too many people involved

tgeb

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that also.
I would deffinetly salvage the logs if possible.

__________________
Tom

www.gebcon.com