The Curse of Oak Island returned last night for the premiere of Season 10, and it’s clear that this year, the team is determined to use science and technology to uncover the treasure.
The Lagina brothers have been digging up Oak Island for ten years now, but never before have they had such an array of scientific tools at their disposal. For Marty Lagina, it’s now all about the science.
The last few seasons have seen the guys put more and more faith in archaeologists and archaeology, and they now have an XRF (X-ray fluorescence) machine and an XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) machine, both of which help to analyze the composition of artifacts.
The show started with a quick rundown of the key areas that will require investigation this year. One of the first things mentioned was the use of Muom Technology, a groundbreaking system for mapping the island under the surface. But unfortunately, this will take a few months.
Other things on the to-do list included uncovering more artifacts from Lot 8, more studies in the swamp area, and also further trips abroad, such as to Portugal and England, to establish links between Europe, the Templar Knights, and Oak Island.
However, Marty was very clear when he stressed that their main focus should be uncovering whatever is giving the high readings of gold and silver in the water under the Money Pit.
The Curse of Oak Island team hopes to find the gold in the water
Since last year, geologist Dr. Ian Spooner has been taking samples from underground water, and he keeps finding traces of gold and silver, too much for it to be from natural deposits.
This year, he’s been tasked with taking more samples so he can pinpoint exactly where the guys should dig for the treasure. And Marty wants him to do this really quickly.
Ian is already super interested in the area surrounding the Garden shaft. This was a searcher shaft discovered by the guys in 2017 but subsequently abandoned. Ian has now said that gold in the water suggests a deposit of treasure may be down there.
In last night’s episode, the drill team, headed by Charles Barkhouse and Terry Mattheson, unearthed a 5-foot wide tunnel at 103 feet in the Money Pit area.
Again, using new science, the team stuck a camera down the drill shaft and was actually able to view the broken timbers of a tunnel. This was the first time ever that the team was able to view a structure underground.
The guys were then able to map the tunnel using sonar imaging.
The Oak Island team tracked the direction of new tunnel
And there was even more excitement when surveyor Steve Guptill indicated that the tunnel might be heading toward the Garden shaft.
There’s more; the guys were able to extract some of the wood timber. The wood looked really old and had possibly been worked using a medieval adze tool.
Unfortunately, the carbon-14 dating was somewhat inclusive, giving an age range of over 200 years, but the earliest date possible was the 1640s, which could put it in the time period of depositors.
There’s a long way to go in this season, with over 20 episodes waiting for us, but it’s already looking very exciting and promises to be an action-packed year.
And as Marty said at the start of the show, “I want to get to the bottom of it this year… this year I mean it, ok? We gotta get it done guys.”
The Curse of Oak Island airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on History.
