Tonight's episode was described as -
The team has an expedition to remote meteorite impact site on a mountain above the ranch. They uncover clues that lead them to an underground cavern. As Duane's health is precarious still, Chad must step in.
Eric found a shattercone from a meteorite strike along that faultline. He believes there may be a doorway in the faultline into the caverns. He believes they should go to the open pit mine as it is likely the sites of meteorite piece strikes. He thinks the open pit mines were actually strike sites and not manmade, that later miners used them to find gold and iron.
Chad reminds them there seems to be a wild "animal" stalking the area. They decided to bring more of the team to the open pit mine area for protection.
The pit mines are up at 10,000 feet. There are wolves and bears, as well as mountain lions there. This remote location likely hasn't seen people for ages. Erik and Chad left Charlie and Josh at the pit mines and decided to explore a side of the mountain they hadn't looked at before. An escarpment shows promise of a cave entrance. Eric and Chad decide to rappel down. Once they got to the bottom of the escarpment, Eric found an opening and it likely has gold. Eric went in to study the tunnel. Eric finds evidence of a vein and what might be iron, but is likely a meteorite fragment. Eric decides to continue along the escarpment, looking for a bigger impact site.
Meanwhile, Josh the treasure hunter and Charlie study the open pit mine area. Josh starts with metal detecting. Josh found a piece of gold in quartz and evidence of someone breaking up quartz on the rock to find the gold. The stone tools were more like Native American use. Josh and Charlie continued to follow the potential vein. They called Chad and Eric on the walkie to inform them. Chad and Eric climbed back up to meet them.
Even though it's a danger to collapse, Josh wanted them to study it closer. Chad wanted to go down and give it a look. Chad went down to see if it is part of a deeper hole. The magnetometer showed a huge void under the pit, a cavern possibly. The pit began to crumble, so Chad had to rush back up the rope to safety.
I have to wonder if they ever thought of a nighttime study of the hillsides using a FLIR to look for cold spots (cave openings).
As the men followed a path toward the keyhole chamber area, they found 3 wooden crosses likely marking graves of prior miners.
The men set up a camp. Charlie standing guard, heard a loud sound, but couldn't figure where it's coming from. The men explored the darkened woods and Charlie shot a warning shot in the air as he had seen a black wolf just standing there. It left a huge print. The men decide they need to watch out.
A couple days later, Chad went to visit his dad, Duane, who was staying in town while getting tested. Duane has nerve damage. He is considering going back to the ranch in Texas to get a better level of care and evaluation. Chad assured him that he's got things under control, he'll find a way into the cavern system.
The team gathered back at the ranch to discuss finds. Eric said they should lidar to help evaluate potential void along fault line. He wants to use a 4D high resolution lidar that can cut through rock and such with best resolution. He believed this could show where another entrance could be.
Duane came back to the ranch to get updated before moving on with his health workup. Chad reassured him he's got this.
Charlie enjoyed some target practice beforehand. He likes to stay prepared for anything, especially wildllife.
Eric launched the lidar and let it map the area. The focus was the open pit mine area. On the first sweep, Eric found a cliff with some holes within. He sent Chad and James out to study it. Chad climbed up to a hole in the rock and used the magnetometer, but no signs of voids. They found a potential void with the instrument. In the rock, under the dirt, they found what looked like a glyph of a bird, an eagle.
Chad believed that the eagle carving showed them a direction to go. James and Chad decided to go in that direction.
The preview of next week shows they get into a cavernous area and it holds lots of promise.
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