Magnetometers are also used to detect archaeological sites, shipwrecks, and other buried or submerged objects. Fluxgate gradiometers are popular due to their compact configuration and relatively low cost. Gradiometers enhance shallow features and negate the need for a base station. Caesium and Overhauser magnetometers are also very effective when used as gradiometers or as single-sensor systems with base stations.
The TV program Time Team popularised geophys, including magnetic techniques used in archaeological work to detect fire hearths, walls of baked bricks and magnetic stones such as basalt and granite. Walking tracks and roadways can sometimes be mapped with differential compaction in magnetic soils or with disturbances in clays, such as on the Great Hungarian Plain. Ploughed fields behave as sources of magnetic noise in such surveys.