toledoblade.com --

The Bowsher High School marching band won’t be practicing on the site of a century-old cemetery anymore.

But from that unwitting blunder last fall came an auspicious project that had two students and their mentor using ground-penetrating radar equipment to locate long-lost graves.

Saturday, when volunteers search for sunken concrete markers stamped with a number identifying who’s buried at each grave, they’ll begin at that area behind the school that now sprouts dozens of small orange flags, placed by the student researchers.

The project began late last year, led by Melinda Campbell, a National Science Foundation fellow assigned to mentor Bowsher students while she earns a master’s degree in geology at the University of Toledo.

When Ms. Campbell learned of the old cemetery, originally owned by the Toledo State Hospital and now part of the University of Toledo’s Health Science Campus, she figured it could be a good way to teach how to do a ground-penetrating radar project. Indeed, her work with students Pamela Fink and Kenneth Gibbons developed into a talk she gave at the Geological Society of America’s North Central Conference at Northern Illinois University earlier this month.

In addition, Don Stierman, a geophysicist and associate professor at UT, hunted for burial sites employing a magnetometer and reported his results at the same conference.

Ms. Campbell’s team first researched whether radar had been successful in previous efforts to find unmarked graves. It had. They learned about the cemetery reclamation project, obtained permission from UT, and determined specifically where to search.

At the site, they stretched out six long lines one meter apart and slowly walked them, taking measurements one step at a time while carrying antennae, fiber optic cables, a computer, and battery packs. The survey took four hours on each of two frigid December days.

The results — a series of lines and bumps on paper — show cross sections of ground to about 10 feet deep. All six of the lines they walked indicate patterns, which they plotted on graph paper.

"The marks were consistent with a graveyard," said Ms. Campbell. Guided by their map, they returned to the site and planted orange flags to help those who would search for markers.

"The students’ next job is to present a talk to the [cemetery] committee," she said.

Magnetometers, with lead batteries, sensors, and spinning electrons, are sometimes used at archaeological sites. The equipment fits into a bag the size of a large suitcase.

"This is urban archaeology," said Mr. Stierman, who also studied the site last fall accompanied by a UT student. "We’re looking for places [below the surface] where the soil has been disturbed."

Taking 10 measurements a second, the magnetometer determines the strength of the earth’s field.

"And small objects that you wouldn’t think are magnetic do contain little magnetic grains," he said.

With his faster machine, he was able to cover more ground than Ms. Campbell’s group. The information showed graves as about 180 pockets with less magnetism than the surrounding soil. His and Ms. Campbell’s conclusions are complementary.

"Her map looks like my map," he said, noting that the graves don’t seem to be well-organized.

"They’re not lined up in nice, neat rows," he said.

Contact Tahree Lane at:
tlane@theblade.com
or 419-724-6075.

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