How can the money be exposed to spring diatoms without going into the water in the spring?
By being buried previously - erosion exposes the money to water born diatoms. Remember the discussion about 'can toms work their way through sand, and how deep do toms penetrate ...' ? There are a number of scenarios that could apply. Tom use asterionella as his example because of its fragility.
Tom cites asterionella but in fact he found 7 species on the money. Which species got to the money first? Yes, the whole group is a springtime family but they are also a summer group bloom. The dredging happened in late summer to Sept. Thats on the borderline btwn spring~summer.
We dont know if the three bundles came as a group or as part of a larger group of bundles .... in or out of the bag ? The bag would shield all of the money from exposure to diatoms until the bag broke or deteriorated letting water have direct contact with bundles ....
There is nothing in the findings so far that guarantees they money arrived anywhere in the Spring. The finds so far only prove EXPOSURE. to 7 species of diatoms. As a group, the seven species span spring-late summer.
That's why!
Georger, do you believe dredging to be the most likely way that the money arrived to TB? You mention it quite a bit. Just curious.
Yes I do - and a poll of agents at Portland/Vancouver also agreed the dredging was the most likely scenario. But that doesn't get us much. How did the bag of money get attached to the bottom to be scooped up during the dredging? Where did it come from.
We know Cooper did not land on Tina Bar - that is total fiction. We know three lone bundles did not flow down the river to wind up at T-Bar! Its unlikely anyone buried three lone bundles at T-Bar. The money was in Cooper's possession. For any money to be found south of Lake Merwin, Cooper has to survive the drop and travel south toward Vancouver with the money. There are just a finite number of ways money can wind up on Tina Bar. The pool of fragments along with the Ingram bundles suggests the bundles were stirred during their life in-and-around the Ingram site. The only factual event that happened at Tina Bar from 1971-1980, was a dumping of bottom spoils in 74 followed by money discovery in 1980. No other large scale events that connect T-Bar with the outside world are known to have happened at Tina Bar during that critical time period. Everything else is theoretical. The dredging event is real and happened because it connects Tina Bar with the outside world during the critical time period before the Columbia basin water system could have erased the money forever ...
Let me also say, I think there was a critical detachment in the whole Seattle office, in the Cooper case. For one thing there is no way Seattle agents had the same first-hand perspective Portland and Vancouver agents had, with respect to the Columbia and how money could have been processed in the Portland ecology, once Cooper and the money entered the Columbia Basin. The money obviously entered the Portland-Columbia ecology, as a fact of nature. Once that happened there were only so many options available for what could (and did!) happen to Cooper and his money. At the end of that series of events lone visitors find Cooper money on a sand bar beach 4 miles west of Vancouver. No big surprise given the natural facts of the Portland Columbia area. Dr Edwards has picked up on this fact in his work. Somehow Cooper and the money got separated, in the Portland-Vancouver water shed. At some point in his travels into this area, Cooper and the money were together ... and then they weren't! Money is then found on a beach of the Columbia in 1980. Events conspired to put Seattle in charge of an events that didnt even happen in their own back yard! The Seattle office may not have had a firm perspective on how to approach this ... or the investigative options available in the Portland-Columbia area far away from Seattle and Washington DC.
