GEORGER, I'm not certain why you feel the need to advise me concerning how/when to handle my theories.
This information you're referencing--i.e., big boulders, small glass diatoms that are very fragile--is very important work from Tom. Part of the reason why is because it destroys the self-burial theory.
How so?
Tom stated that he found "whole" diatoms on 377's bill--although some may have been flattened. Moreover, he stated given that they're so fragile, they could not have migrated down throw the sand a foot or so to attach to the money. Tom said the diatoms would shatter in the process.
The thing is that the extremely fragile diatoms would also shatter during the wave and sand agitation process required to self-bury the bills. In other words, the sandy water along the waterline pounding on the three packets of twenties and burrowing them into the beach would also shatter the diatoms. Therefore, this would appear to destroy the self-bury theory which everything other than the money-being-buried-by-a-human-being theory requires.
The Tena Bar sand analysis should also answer whether this is true.
Even the scientific analysis points explicitly to the bills being exposed to the diatoms in a somewhat placid--not abrasive--river water scenario. Other than the June retrieval theory I have discussed, how is this possible?
If what you are saying is accurate, and if I am understanding you correctly, then your theory that Cooper left the $5800 behind in the dark accidentally would also be out the window. My understanding is that you feel Cooper returned as the flood waters were covering the burial site dug it up but left behind three bundles accidentally. Those three bundles then self-buried to be found in 1980. If you now feel that self-burial is impossible, then how do you explain how the three bundles got there? Were they not dug up at all? Then how did they get any diatoms on them?
No, my theory does not involve self-burial. It involves DBC burying the cash temporarily before he walks into town eight miles down the road.
When DBC buried the money at Tena Bar he would have dug a hole and placed the money bag and loose packets into the same hole. Remember, he had to remove some of the packets (approx. 25%) from the bank bag before tying off the top with shroud lines.
Upon hearing of the historic (and it was historic) flooding in June of 1972, my theory is that he returned under cover of darkness to unearth the bank bag and loose packets. I speculate that at the time this was done the burial spot was already under a foot or two of water.
Therefore, DBC simply would have waded into the water--again at night--dug down a little bit until he could grab a portion of the money bag and pull it up from its watery grave. I believe he would have felt around for the loose packets too. Obviously once the bag is pulled up, the surrounding sand will settle back into this underwater hole thereby covering back over three packets that simply went unrecovered.
As time went on, the Columbia receded several feet back to its normal level and the burial spot would have once again dried out. Then, after years of erosion at Tena Bar, the rotting yet still buried packets would have been within a few inches of the surface of the beach when Brian Ingram came along and the rest is history.
Therefore, the three packets would have been exposed to the Columbia River water and diatoms during the June 1972 retrieval before being locked underground for another 7 1/2 years.
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