During our geophysical surveys around Lufton we discovered that the use of ‘green waste’ on arable fields was causing interference to our magnetometer surveys. This interference would appear to be due to iron contaminants present in the green waste.

Given the scale that green waste is being used on in the UK and Europe this phenomenon could have significant implications for shallow geophysical prospection.

Our research has recently been published in the journal Archaeological Prospection as: Gerrard, J., Caldwell, L. and Kennedy, A. 2015 ‘Green waste and archaeological geophysics’. Archaeological Prospection