Season 7 of The Curse of Oak Island (AI-assisted historical reconstruction, not a photograph)

The Curse of Oak IslandSeason 7

The Torch Is Passed

23 Episodes • Nov 5 – Apr 28, 2020

Written by Corjan Mol, author & Historical Researcher, Oak Island Team

Artifacts found and discussed in Season 7

36 artifacts were found or discussed in Season 7.

All 36 artifacts

Season 7 in brief

The season opens with the passing of legendary treasure hunter Dan Blankenship at age 95, a man who devoted more than 50 years of his life to Oak Island. Honoring his legacy, the team turns to the swamp he always believed held secrets, uncovering a paved stone wharf on the swamp floor and a stack of boulders forming what becomes known as the Eye of the Swamp. Historical researchers Corjan Mol and Christopher Morford make their first War Room appearance, presenting a theory linking Nicolas Poussin's Shepherds of Arcadia painting to Oak Island through geometric analysis, demonstrating that a pentagram derived from the painting aligns precisely with Nolan's Cross when overlaid on a map of the island. A seismic survey of the Money Pit reveals a 13-by-13-foot anomaly at its centre, and the team deploys massive eight-foot-wide caissons for the first time, targeting the so-called Teardrop feature. Old timbers inscribed with Roman numerals emerge from deep underground, echoing the U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove. The season ends with the team convinced they are closer than ever, with a clear target for the years ahead.

Key events

Dan Blankenship passes away, stone pathway in swamp, ship's railing dated 660-770 AD (oldest artifact found), wood under paved area dated ~1200 AD, Tom Nolan joins team

Key people

Rick Lagina
Marty Lagina
Craig Tester
Alex Lagina
Dave Blankenship
Gary Drayton
Billy Gerhardt
Charles Barkhouse
Doug Crowell
Steve Guptill

+ 11 more

Laird Niven
Dr. Ian Spooner
Carmen Legge
Tom Nolan
Jack Begley
Peter Fornetti
Terry Matheson
Dan Henskee
Corjan Mol
Christopher Morford
Judi Rudebusch

The underground works of Season 7

16 holes and 6 tunnels and areas appear in Season 7 episodes, the deepest hole at 235 ft (10-X). Bars share one scale, 0 to 240 ft.

All 16 holes

Tunnels and areas

All 6 tunnels and areas

Open the full borehole map

Research behind the season

The Evidence

Oak Island Flood Tunnels and Box Drains: The Water Trap

The box drains at Smith's Cove look real. The coconut fibre is confirmed. But has anyone ever actual...

The Hunt

The Real Daniel McGinnis of Oak Island

The story of how Daniel McGinnis found the Money Pit in 1795 is the founding legend of Oak Island. T...

The Theories

The Knights Templar on Oak Island

Knights Templar and Oak Island: 20 medieval-dated artifacts cluster on the year 1212, within the ord...

All 23 episodes of Season 7

1 Episode 1Nov 5, 2019 The Torch Is Passed Season seven opens with the team gathering in the War Room for their first meeting without veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship, who passed away during the off-season after devoting more than half a century to the Oak Island mystery. Rick Lagina leads a moment of silence and pledges to pursue the breakthrough Dan never received. Marty Lagina and Jack Begley join by video conference as surveyor… 2 Episode 2Nov 12, 2019 Core Values Choice Drilling begins retrieving core samples from the swamp ship anomaly, operating a five-ton sonic rig staged on an 800-square-foot floating barge. Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, Tom Nolan, Paul Troutman, Charles Barkhouse, and Doug Crowell monitor the extraction. The organic layer proves remarkably thin, giving way almost immediately to hard, dry clay similar to what is found in the… 3 Episode 3Nov 19, 2019 Eye of the Swamp Geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner presents his initial findings in the War Room, with Marty Lagina and Craig Tester joining by video conference. After analysing the swamp core samples collected over the previous two weeks, Spooner determines that sedimentation indicates the swamp is relatively young, perhaps only 300 to 400 years old, far younger than he expected. At the northern apex of the… 4 Episode 4Nov 26, 2019 The Lucky Thirteen At the Smith's Cove upper beach, Choice Drilling sinks exploratory borehole OITC-6 ten feet northwest of a previous hole that had revealed dynamite residue from the Oak Island Treasure Company's 1897 blasting operation at a depth of 95 feet. In a core sample from roughly 51 feet, Paul Troutman and geologist Terry Matheson identify two pieces of hand-cut wooden beams separated by two feet of moist… 5 Episode 5Dec 3, 2019 Tunnel Visions Choice Drilling sinks an exploratory borehole near the Cave-In Pit to investigate underground anomalies detected by ground-penetrating radar. The target sits on the northern side of the GPR anomaly, slightly closer to the Money Pit than previous efforts. Jack Begley, geologist Terry Matheson, Doug Crowell, and Paul Troutman monitor the cores as the barrel reaches the target zone. Between 99 and… 6 Episode 6Dec 10, 2019 Closing In The search for Shaft 9 reaches its conclusion as the team traces the 1863 sluiceway, originally identified with help from veteran treasure hunter Dan Henskee, back to its source. Surveyor Steve Guptill takes GPS measurements along the exposed sluiceway to calculate where the shaft should lie. Billy Gerhardt digs a series of trenches, initially finding nothing, until wood begins appearing in the… 7 Episode 7Dec 17, 2019 Things That Go Bump-out At the Oak Island Research Centre, surveyor Steve Guptill shows Rick Lagina and historian Doug Crowell a diagram plotting the recently confirmed location of Shaft 9, built roughly 100 feet southwest of the Money Pit in 1863. With that distance established, Guptill draws an arc of possible Money Pit locations northeast of the shaft. Crowell then produces a 1931 aerial photograph taken during the… 8 Episode 8Jan 7, 2020 Triptych Following completion of a 6,000-square-foot extension to the massive steel cofferdam at Smith's Cove, Rick Lagina and members of the team begin excavating a mysterious square-shaped log structure that has no record among previous searchers. Billy Gerhardt operates the excavator while geologist Terry Matheson, archaeologist Laird Niven, Doug Crowell, and Jack Begley examine the emerging feature. A… 9 Episode 9Jan 14, 2020 An Eye for an Eye In the War Room, the team reviews the discovery of Shaft Two and plans additional drilling to determine the orientation of the tunnel that extends from it toward the original Money Pit. Historian Doug Crowell and surveyor Steve Guptill mark the location for borehole F-14 using GPS data from previous holes. At the Money Pit area, geologist Terry Matheson and Dave Blankenship supervise the… 10 Episode 10Jan 21, 2020 Gary Strikes Again At Smith's Cove, Rick Lagina, Peter Fornetti, and Gary Drayton investigate the massive wooden structure exposed in the bump-out area during the cofferdam extension. Archaeologist Laird Niven examines the logs and associates the structure with the nearby slipway, noting it is far larger than anything previously connected to that feature and may represent where ships pulled alongside for loading or… 11 Episode 11Jan 28, 2020 The Eye of the Storm With Hurricane Dorian, a powerful storm that has already caused catastrophic damage in the Bahamas with 185-mile-per-hour winds, approaching the Atlantic coast, the team races to make progress before it hits Nova Scotia. At the swamp, Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and Billy Gerhardt excavate the stone-paved area discovered earlier in the season by diver Tony Sampson. Within minutes… 12 Episode 12Feb 4, 2020 Fortified Following Hurricane Dorian, which battered Oak Island with nearly 100-mile-per-hour winds and reflooded the swamp with ocean water, Rick Lagina and Scott Barlow estimate two to three days of pumping before excavation can resume. In the War Room, Craig Tester presents dendrochronology results to Rick, Marty Lagina, and the team for a wood sample from the bump-out structure at Smith's Cove… 13 Episode 13Feb 11, 2020 Bromancing the Stones Rick Lagina shows fellow landowner Tom Nolan the paved stone walkway uncovered in the swamp, a feature Tom's late father Fred Nolan never had the means to expose during his five decades investigating the area. In the War Room, Rick and historian Doug Crowell present to Marty Lagina and the team findings from their trip to Fortress Louisbourg, an 18th-century French military fort some 300 miles… 14 Episode 14Feb 25, 2020 Burnt Offering In the War Room, the team reviews carbon dating results from borehole FG-12 in the Money Pit area: a wood sample recovered at 106 feet has been dated to as early as 1626, more than 150 years before the discovery of the original treasure shaft by Daniel McGinnis in 1795. Located just 25 feet from the promising H-8 shaft that previously yielded pottery, parchment, leather bookbinding, and… 15 Episode 15Mar 3, 2020 Surely Templar At the Oak Island swamp, Rick Lagina, Alex Lagina, Jack Begley, and Gary Drayton investigate the shallow northern end of a 200-foot ship-shaped anomaly identified earlier in the season by seismic scanning, buried at an angle from 15 feet at one end to 55 feet at the other. Jack spots a wooden stake similar to other ancient markers found in the swamp. Gary and Jack then uncover a hollow metal… 16 Episode 16Mar 10, 2020 Water Logged In the Uplands near Smith's Cove, Billy Gerhardt continues excavating what the team believes to be Shaft Five, built by the Truro Company in 1850. Gary Drayton metal detects the spoils and recovers two heavy iron spikes with rose-head tops that he dates to the 1700s, possibly predating the Money Pit's 1795 discovery. In the War Room, Marty Lagina and Craig Tester report results from the Eagle… 17 Episode 17Mar 17, 2020 To Boulderly Go Rick Lagina brings geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner to the swamp to examine a circle of boulders discovered the previous week by Rick, members of the team, and fellow landowner Tom Nolan. The stones sit atop what appears to be the paved area, carry traces of blue clay similar to material found deep in the Money Pit in 1804, and the largest boulder resembles those forming the megalithic formation… 18 Episode 18Mar 24, 2020 The Turning Point Irving Equipment Limited and ROC Equipment deliver the heavy equipment for the season's most ambitious Money Pit excavation: eight-foot-wide steel caissons, a custom-built 110,000-pound oscillator from South Korea (nearly double the 64,000-pound unit from the previous year), and a 220-ton crane. Vanessa Lucido confirms the caissons can reach 202 feet. The target site, OC-1, was selected based on… 19 Episode 19Mar 31, 2020 Lords of the Ring At the Money Pit, the eight-foot-wide caisson at borehole OC-1 pushes past 50 feet, grinding through the remains of the Hedden Shaft, the 12-by-24-foot wood-cribbed structure built by treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden in 1937 to reach 125 feet. Rick and Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and geologist Terry Matheson monitor closely as the team from Irving Equipment Limited and ROC Equipment advance.… 20 Episode 20Apr 7, 2020 Springing the Trap At the Money Pit, the eight-foot-wide caisson at borehole 8-A pushes past 78 feet, targeting the Shaft Six tunnel, which according to archival records connects directly to the original Money Pit. Vanessa Lucido monitors progress as the oscillator pressure builds to 2,500 pounds per square inch at roughly 103 feet, suggesting the caisson is cutting through a structure. Dan Henskee watches the… 21 Episode 21Apr 14, 2020 A Leaf of Faith In the War Room, geophysicist Jeremy Church of Eagle Canada presents the results of the seismic scanning conducted earlier in the season using 18,000 dynamite charges across the island's eastern half. Among 80,000 sample points, Church identifies a 13-by-13-foot anomaly at 160 feet that he calls the "teardrop," sitting directly in the core of the Money Pit area and just south of borehole H8. Two… 22 Episode 22Apr 21, 2020 Marks X the Spot At the Money Pit, the excavation of borehole RF-1 continues to yield significant material. From roughly 100 feet, the hammergrab brings up massive hand-cut timbers carved with Roman numerals, similar to those found on the U-shaped structure unearthed at Smith's Cove the previous year and scientifically dated to 1769. Terry Matheson suggests the marks served as assembly instructions for the… 23 Episode 23Apr 28, 2020 Timeline At the Money Pit, the team returns to RF-1 after leaving the 26-ton hammergrab resting on the obstruction at 170 feet overnight. The strategy has worked: the blockage has shifted five feet. Digging resumes and Vanessa Lucido reports reaching 202 feet, where the crew encounters a definite void. The excitement is short-lived, as subsequent grabs bring up gravel and backfill material collapsing from…

Keep exploring Season 7

Deepest hole 10-X 235 ft, on the borehole map Top artifact Pick Axe (Eye of the Swamp) See the full record Research Oak Island Flood Tunnels and Box Drains: The Water Trap Read the analysis

Season 7

Frequently Asked Questions

Question One

How many episodes does Season 7 have?

Season 7 of The Curse of Oak Island has 23 episodes, which aired on the History Channel from November 5, 2019 to April 28, 2020. Every episode has its own summary page, listed below.

Question Two

What was found in Season 7?

Artifacts recorded as found in or discussed during Season 7 include Pick Axe (Eye of the Swamp), Samuel Ball Foundation (Lot 25), Leaf/Fern Brooch. This page lists all 36, each with its own record.

Question Three

Which holes were drilled or discussed in Season 7?

Season 7 episodes refer to 16 holes on Oak Island, including 10-X, H-8, OC-1. The deepest record of the season is 10-X, at 235 feet. Each links to its record on the Money Pit borehole map.

Written by

Corjan Mol Author & Historical Researcher, Oak Island Team since 2019 TheCurseOfOakIsland.com

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