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By Alison Campsie - Scotsman

Scotland’s often treacherous coastline is littered with 1,800 known wrecks stretching from the Shetland Islands to the Solway Firth.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) has charted and mapped nearly 18,000 maritime losses in Scottish from the 17th century to the present day.

Now, maritime explorers such as Patrick Crawford, 32, of Utility ROV Services in Glenrothes, Fife, say telecommunications industry technology is being used for shipwreck exploration to great effect. Devices such as fibre optic ropes, acoustic cameras and underwater robots that can travel thousands of miles are transforming deep sea finds.

Patrick has worked on several deep sea wrecks with his parents – veteran shipwreck salvagers Moya and Alexander Crawford. They include passenger liner the SS Persia, which was torpedoed in the First World War and searched by the family near Crete in 2004. A haul of rubies, diamonds and Veuve Clicquot Champagne was made.

Patrick said: “Things have changed massively over the years and the amount of information that can be retrieved by the subsea guys is now phenomenal. “A lot of the kit is now being taken from the telecoms industry, such as fibreoptics which are allowing us to get to depths which we could never have achieved be before.”

Patrick has been able to gather information from as deep as 3,300m, using visual and acoustic cameras operated remotely from ships positioned above the potential salvage site.

He said: “When you get down to a certain level you get the dust kicking up from the sea bed and the visibility goes and you can’t see anything. “You would have to wait till that clears, but now with the acoustic cameras you can keep going.

They see the same way that a bat sees. It allows us to work in zero visibility. There are obviously air diving limits which mean you can only go so far.”

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By Peter B. Campbell - Gulf News

Archaeology has long been exploited as a political tool. Hitler used artefacts and symbols to manufacture a narrative of Aryan racial superiority.

Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) proves its zealotry by destroying evidence of ancient history. Underwater archaeology — the world of shipwrecks and sunken cities — has mostly avoided these kinds of machinations, though. Since no one lives beneath the sea, leaders haven’t found many opportunities for political gains from archaeological sites there. That is, until now.

In the past few years, politicians in Canada, Russia and China have realised that they can use shipwrecks on the sea floor to project their sovereignty into new maritime territories. And this politicised abuse of science is putting the world on a path toward conflict.

For decades, global powers have been engaged in a race to exploit lucrative marine resources, from oil to fisheries to control of strategic waterways. But they have faced a challenge: How can a country claim new territory despite the restrictions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ?

It turns out that “historical ties” to resource-rich regions can conveniently help to contravene international law. Last year, Canada announced the discovery of H.M.S. Erebus, Sir John Franklin’s flagship, which disappeared during a Northwest Passage expedition in 1845.

Stephen Harper, then the prime minister, personally announced the discovery. His government and its allies provided significant funding for the research. But Harper isn’t just a history buff; his interests are practical.

Global warming has made the Northwest Passage more accessible to shipping, which could be an economic windfall for Canada if the government is able to demonstrate sovereignty and charge other countries a transit fee.

“Franklin’s ships are an important part of Canadian history given that his expeditions, which took place nearly 200 years ago, laid the foundations of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty,” Harper said.

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By Tom Wyke - Daily Mail

Covered in coral and left to rest on the Pacific ocean floor, these are the stunning remains of Japan's arsenal of military vehicles which were targeted in one of America's most important bombing operations during World War II.

From tanks to submarines, this military equipment was once part of a key Japanese naval base in Chuuk Lagoon, one of the federated states of Micronesia.

American Fleet Task Force 58 targeted the naval base on 17 February 1944 during a vital two day mission known as Operation Hailstone.

The success of the daring raid played a vital part in allowing Allied forces to gain the advantage in the Pacific campaign. 191,000 tons of war shipping now lies one hundred and eighty feet down at the bottom of the ocean, untouched since one of Japan's worst World War II defeats.

Much of Japan's war machines are now covered in a stunning layer of multi-coloured coral and the home to an array of fish and wildlife. The remains are part of over 40 different World War II wreckage sites at the bottom of the lagoon.

American scuba instructor Brandi Mueller, 32, was able to photograph the incredible detail of the remaining underwater wrecks at one of the best diving locations in the world, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia.

She spent a week diving up to five times a day to capture these incredible shots, revealing the stunning natural beauty left at the site. It is estimated that over 400 aircrafts and 50 Japanese naval ships were destroyed in the deadly operation.

Over 2,000 Japanese troops lost their lives in the deadly 36 hour US aerial assault.

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By Louise Murray - Engineering and Technology Magazine
 

A scientific expedition to an ancient Mediterranean shipwreck reveals the luxurious lifestyle of wealthy Romans in the time of Caesar.

This year, marine archaeologists have been exploring the richest ancient Greek shipwreck of all time using 21st-century technology. The vessel, which sank in around 65 BC, was a 65-metre boat packed with luxury goods from the craftsmen of ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, destined for the burgeoning Roman market.

From the evidence of silver coins found on board, it probably began its journey in Pergamum or Ephesus in modern-day western Turkey, stopping off at the tax-free port and trading centre of Delos in Greece to pick up further goods. The ship sank off the coast of the tiny Greek island of Antikythera en route to a Roman port and the main market for its luxurious cargo.

Brendan Foley, a historian, archaeologist and diver from the USA’s Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), leads the expedition. “Every single dive delivers fabulous finds and reveals how the ‘one per cent’ lived in the time of Caesar,” he notes.

The ship carried art masterpieces of the age, destined for Roman villas: exquisite bronze and marble statues, glassware from Syria and Lebanon, ceramics, bronze couches and amphorae and most important of all, the unique Antikythera mechanism.

This was a sophisticated astronomical calculator, dubbed the world’s first analogue computer and the only one of its kind ever discovered. Even after three waves of exploration, much of the cargo remains deep under the water, as yet untouched.

The wreck was first discovered in spring 1900 by sponge divers. A major recovery of its treasures was made later in the year with the help of the Greek Navy, by divers in bronze diving helmets who were supplied with air pumped from the surface.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau visited the site in 1953 on his expedition ship Calypso and returned to lead a major excavation of the wreck in 1976 as part of a film project, using a small submersible.

Yet it was not until 2014 that a major new expedition began working onsite, its first truly scientific excavation. The multi-year expedition is a collaboration between the Greek Ministry of Culture and WHOI.

“We’ve trained our marine archaeologists for five years to be ready to work this wreck,” Foley. “It’s deep, much of it lies at more than 50 metres and for us to be able to spend reasonable working time down there safely we’ve had to learn to use rebreather technology instead of scuba tanks and air.”

The closed-circuit rebreathers chemically scrub the carbon dioxide from the exhaled breath and top up the inhaled breath with oxygen.

To avoid the bends on ascent due to nitrogen accumulation in the body’s tissues, the necessary long decompression stops are made on gas mixes, culminating in the divers breathing pure oxygen near the surface.

From DW

This is the biggest cultural find in the history of humanity - well, according to Juan Manuel Santos at least. The Colombian president was visibly proud as he spoke about what could be buried inside the 300-year-old San Jose galleon, which was recently found on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.

"We will build a big museum, just like they do in the Scandinavian countries," he said, before cheekily adding, that this discovery is actually more significant than anything that has been found in those countries.

He does have a right to be excited. Researchers predict that 11 million gold pieces and 200 tons of jewels are still buried in the ship.

That could be worth anywhere between $3 billion and $17 billion (2.75 billion euros and 15.58 billion euros) in today's money.

So far, however, the team of Colombian and international scientists has only identified the ship's canons and ceramic containers seen on the underwater photos.

The galleon was found not far from where Santos held his speech, just off the Colombian coast.

On June 8, 1708, the square-rigged ship with three masts was on its way to Spain. But the San Jose didn't get far. A number of pirate ships, sailing under British flags, opened fire on the boat.

Finally, between the Rosario Islands and the Baru peninsula the boat went down. This was a time when various European countries were grappling for supremacy worldwide, as they jostled to take over from the Habsburgs.

"Attacks on Spanish boats overseas by the English were commonplace," said Nikolaus Böttcher, a historian at the Free University of Berlin.

"It was done to weaken the Spanish royal family."

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From Voice of America

The Baltic seabed, littered with war debris and shipwrecks, has fascinated historians and researchers through the ages.

But the underwater search robots they use pose problems by further disturbing the silty waters with their propeller movements. Estonian engineers say they may have found a solution with their latest invention — a small, propeller-less underwater robot that causes minimum disturbance and lowers the risk of damage to submarine archaeology.

The unique feature of the U-CAT, about the size of a vacuum cleaner, is four silicon flippers inspired by streamlined sea turtles' arms and legs.

"They move in a slow and quiet motion and won't bring up sediment from the [sea] bottom," says Taavi Salumae, a designer at the Biorobotics Center of Tallinn University of Technology.

The underwater probe has been developed since 2012 in the EU-funded Arrows project that focuses on new technologies for marine research. It can stay submerged for four hours at a depth of 100 meters (330 feet) on a single battery charge of two hours. It's equipped with a camera and lights.

Most importantly, it can easily be rotated in tight spots that are too dangerous or difficult for human divers. Salumae says the U-CAT, an acronym for Underwater Curious Archaeology Turtle (winner of a Facebook contest to name the robot), is one of the first robots designed to go inside shipwrecks and help underwater archaeologists study interiors of locations.

Full article...

From 3News
 

Colombia says it has found the shipwreck of a Spanish galleon laden with gold and precious stones, three centuries after it was sunk by the British in the Caribbean.

"This is the most valuable treasure that has been found in the history of humanity," declared President Juan Manuel Santos on Saturday (local time), speaking from the port city of Cartagena, close to where experts made the find.

Treasure hunters had searched for the ship for decades, and although they found plenty of other wrecks, the San Jose's final resting place had remained a mystery.

The San Jose was sunk in June 1708 off Colombia's Caribbean coast, during combat with British ships in the War of the Spanish Succession.

The galleon was the main ship in a treasure fleet carrying gold, silver and other valuable items to Spain from its American colonies.

Only a handful of the ship's crew of 600 survived when the San Jose sank.

A team of Colombian and foreign researchers studied winds and currents of the Caribbean 307 years ago and delved into archives in Spain and Colombia searching for clues.

Experts confirmed that they found the San Jose on November 27, Santos said.

The experts confirmed that they located the San Jose because the ship was carrying unique bronze cannons with engraved dolphins.

Full story...

From CBC News

If Jon Crouse wants ​​to taste his 125-year-old ale, he'd better do it soon.

The Nova Scotia government hopes to analyze the beer bottle, which could be deemed a heritage object.

Crouse was scuba diving in Halifax this week when he discovered the beer bottle. It has markings that date it between 1872 and 1890, and a cork that indicates it was bottled by the Alexander Keith's brewery.

"I'd like to keep it for myself," Crouse said. But the finders keepers rule doesn't apply.

'A heritage object' "The Special Places Protection Act protects all archaeological sites, known and unknown, both on land in Nova Scotia and in the water," said Sean Wesley McKeane with the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

"The province of Nova Scotia can seize a heritage object. But what we like is for people to recognize that these are important things, not just for a collector, but for all of the people of Nova Scotia."

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