On this week’s The Curse of Oak Island, the team encounters gold as they begin probing for a treasure chamber at the garden shaft in the Money Pit area.
Tonight’s episode is, tantalizingly, called Striking Gold, and it looks like the guys are going to hit a major breakthrough.
There has been plenty of evidence indicating there is treasure buried in the area around the garden shaft, and it feels like only a matter of time before the team uncovers it.
On this week’s episode, the Dumas mining company will begin its probe drilling operation. As they restore the garden shaft and move further underground, they will be firing a probing drill into the wall, searching for an offset tunnel.
The team is working on the theory that the treasure may be hidden in a chamber that is offset from the garden shaft. The “baby blob” identified by geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner suggests there is gold and other metals buried a few feet to the west of the shaft.
And the borehole drill team keeps finding evidence of tunneling nearby. This all seems to point to an elusive offset chamber.
Oak Island team may have finally found the offset chamber at the garden shaft
A preview suggests that the Dumas drill has already hit something, and there seems to be great excitement as most of the Fellowship gather in the Money Pit area.
Expert metallurgist Emma Culligan is on hand to tell the team that she has detected gold. It’s unclear exactly where the gold has been detected, but it’s enough to cause Ian to exclaim, “this is huge!” And historian Charles Barkhouse suggests “that could be where the treasure’s hiding.”
The History Channel episode synopsis focuses on the idea the guys have found an offset chamber:
“The Fellowship is certain that they’re closer than ever to an offset chamber when the probe drilling operation in the garden shaft gets underway.”
In the meantime, Laird Niven and the other archaeologists are currently investing all their energies on Lot 26. They have been investigating a mysterious well that could be as much as 800 years old, and last week, they began examining an old stone wall.
Does an ancient stone wall hide evidence of digging on Oak Island?
This wall has a massive oak tree growing out of it, and the guys believe the wall must have existed before the tree; therefore, if they can date the tree, then they also have a minimum age for the wall.
In the preview for this week’s episode, Laird consults an expert who argues that if someone wanted to hide evidence of underground digging, then the best place to hide it would be in the middle of the wall.
This island seems to throw up more and more work and more areas to investigate for the guys every week. And this is great news for us viewers.
The Curse of Oak Island airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on History.