In this video, we're going to discuss the developments that took place in Season 7,
Episode 3 of 'The Curse of Oak Island', but first, I want to remind you that my new
book, 'The Oak Island Encyclopedia', is still available for purchase on Amazon.
This book includes a detailed history of the Oak Island treasure hunt, a plot
summary and analysis for each episode of 'The Curse of Oak Island' from Seasons 1
through 6, and descriptions of some of the most popular theories regarding the
nature of the Oak Island mystery. This book is meant to serve as a guide to the
TV show, and would make a great gift for any fan of 'The Curse of Oak Island.' If
you're planning to give this book as a Christmas gift this year, I would advise
that you purchase it sooner rather than later, as the time it takes to print and
ship the book can be unpredictable, especially during the holiday season. If
you'd like to get yourself a copy of this book, please check out the link in
the description. Season 7, Episode 3 of 'The Curse of Oak Island' begins in the
War Room, where a geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner presents his analysis of the
core samples taken from beneath the Ship Anomaly in the Oak Island swamp. For a
refresher on the Ship Anomaly, please check out my videos on Season 7, Episodes
1 & 2. You'll find links to these videos, with built-in timestamps directing you
to the sections in which the ship anomaly is mentioned, in the description.
In the previous episode, Dr. Spooner made a cursory examination of these Ship
Anomaly core samples and determined that their concentrations of clay, coupled
with their dearth of organic material, seemed to indicate that the swamp
constituted sea bottom at some point in the not-so-distant past. In this episode,
however, Dr. Spooner states that a more thorough examination of the samples has
led him to a slightly different conclusion. Similar to his previous
assessment, he states that the sample's sedimentation indicates that the swamp
is a relatively young wetland. Specifically, he states that the swamp
appears to be 300 to 400 years old. In other words, Dr. Spooner believes that
the swamp was formed sometime between 1619 and 1719- a date range which
corresponds with several Oak Island theories, and with many of the artifacts
that have been discovered on the island over the years. Contrary to his previous
assessment, however, he also states that the swamp area likely supported
terrestrial vegetation like oak or spruce trees immediately prior to
its transformation into a wetland. This conclusion accords with the implication
of the various oak stumps that have been discovered in a swamp over the years,
namely that the swamp once constituted dry ground, but conflicts with the notion
that Oak Island consisted of two separate islands at the time of the
swamp's formation. During his presentation, Dr. Spooner also informs the team that,
during a previous operation which did not appear in the show, he and a handful
of assistants collected additional core samples in the swamp and probed the area
with an iron rod. In a small oval pond curiously devoid of vegetation,
located at the northernmost tip of the swamp, he and his crew discovered a
number of stones on the swamp floor which appeared to encircle the area.
Later in the episode, Marty Lagina, Alex Lagina, Gary Drayton, and Steve Guptill
investigated these rocks and found that most of them appeared to contain or lie
on top of some sort of iron object, which the men were unable to locate. The only
rock which appeared to be devoid of iron was the largest rock in the area. Conical,
boulder-like, and bearing a flat side, this rock strongly resembles those which
comprise Nolan's Cross. The Oak Island team plans to investigate this anomaly,
dubbed the "Eye of the Swamp", and its strange circle of stones by draining
the swamp and having a contractor named Shawn Wilson excavate the area in
question through the use of a 16' x 16' "trench cage", or "dig box"- a square,
caisson-like device which will isolate the area from the surrounding swamp. The
team also tasked Wilson with investigating the ship anomaly, as well
as a pattern of stones which Tony Sampson discovered just north of the
Ship Anomaly in the Season 7 premiere, which have collectively been entitled
the "Paved Wharf". Later in the episode, Alex Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Charles
Barkhouse head to st. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they
present Dr. Christa Brosseau with the iron swage blocks which Gary Drayton
discovered on Oak Island's Lot 21 the previous episode. With the help of Dr.
Xiang Yang, she determines that the iron of which the swages are comprised are devoid
of manganese- a characteristic which indicates that the artifacts were
probably crafted some time before 1840. Charles Barkhouse points out that only
two companies searched for treasure on Oak Island prior to 1840- the Onslow Company
and the Money Pits' three legendary co-discoverers: Daniel McGinnis, John Smith,
and Anthony Vaughn. Aside from these groups, the only people who could be
reasonably expected to have owned such a strange tool are members of an
undocumented recovery operation or the mysterious depositors of the Oak Island
treasure. Peter Fornetti wisely draws attention to
the fact that the Money Pit's three discoverers and members of the Onslow
Company are believed to have concentrated their activities on the
eastern end of Oak Island, far from Lot 21 where the sage blocks were found, the
implication being that the swage probably belonged to pre-1795 depositors
or recoverers. Near the end of the episode, the Oak Island team drills a
hole on the upper beach of Smith's Cove, at a location at which they hope the
convergence point of the Smith's Cove box drains might lie. At a depth of 91
feet, the drill encounters soft clay mixed with small stones. Geologist Terry
Matheson describes the material as "amorphous", or formless, and states that
this is the first time such material has appeared in a core sample on Oak Island.
He suggests that its formless nature might be attributable to an explosion
which took place in its vicinity. At a depth of 99, feet the drill brings up
charred earth which smells of gunpowder; a fragment of what appears to be the
paper wrapping of a stick of dynamite; and a piece of twisted metal tubing-
perhaps the remains of the setting for the supposed dynamite. The crew agrees
that they have almost certainly uncovered evidence of the dynamiting
operation carried out by the Oak Island Treasure Company more than 120 years ago.
Back in the spring of 1897, the Oak Island Treasure Company attempted to
destroy the Smith's Cove flood tunnel, hoping that by doing so they would be
able to excavate the Money Pit without having to contend with flood water. They
drilled five blast holes in a line running from north to south about 50
feet from the shoreline and loaded them with dynamite charges. Although the two
90-foot-deep blast holes on either end were dry, the middle one filled with
seawater upon reaching the 80-foot level, apparently having hit the flood tunnel.
When the charges were detonated, a massive jet of water exploded more than
a hundred feet into the air. At the same time, the water
in both the Money Pit and the Cave-In Pit, in the words of treasure hunter
Frederick Blair, "boiled and foamed for a considerable time, and after the
disturbance subsided, the oil of the dynamite showed on the water in both
these pits." This verified that the Money Pit and the Cave-In Pit were
both fed by the same water source, namely seawater from Smith's Cove, which
apparently traveled by way of the Smith's Cove flood tunnel. After
discovering evidence of the Oak Island Treasure Company's operation. the
Fellowship of the Dig decides to search for the Smith's Cove flood tunnel uphill
from the new drill hole, in the direction of the Money Pit. Although it is likely
coincidental, the combination of clay and small stones found at a depth of 91 feet,
coupled with the piece of metal tubing discovered at 99 feet, is strangely
reminiscent of a discovery made by Triton Alliance back in 1970. That summer,
Dan Blankenship and David Tobias hired a contracting company called Becker
Drilling to punch holes in the Money Pit area. Below the Hedden Shaft, at a depth
of 160-290 feet, Becker Drilling encountered a chamber
filled with blue clay, in which were suspended equidistant layers of pebbles.
At the bottom of this chamber was some sort of brass object which the drill
chewed into. Although there is no possibility of the brass object's being
the same metal tube discovered in this episode, as the Hedden Shaft is located
far from Smith's Coves' Upper Beach ,where members of the Oak Island Treasure
Company conducted their dynamiting operation, the fact that Triton Alliance
and the current treasure hunters both discovered clay and pebbles and a depth
of 90 feet is perhaps worth noting. Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this
video and would like to help support this channel, please check out 'The Oak
Island Encyclopedia', which you can find by clicking the link in the description.