HOT NEWS !

By Melissa Farenish - The Daily Item

Oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard never grew up. The 67-year-old, best known for his discovery of the R.M.S. Titanic shipwreck in 1985, has declared himself to be “still a kid.” 

In a recent telephone interview, an enthusiastic Ballard described his 50-year career exploring the sea. “I’m most known for the Titanic and the Bismarck shipwrecks but that’s a small part of my career,” Ballard said.

Ballard, now a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, veered the conversation away from his shipwreck discoveries.

Instead, he highlighted his discoveries of ocean hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, and life forms on the deep, sun-deprived ocean floors.

Part of the allure of being a scientist is deconstructing every theory he ever learned in school.

By Kurt Repanshek - National Parks Traveler

Who would have figured that Channel Islands National Park has ties to rum runners ? Or that a World War II torpedo bomber lies beneath the waves at the park that is set off the California coast ?

In December if you're in the vicinity of Santa Barbara, California, you'll be able to learn more about these and other historic shipwrecks and submerged aircraft that rest on the seabed around the Channel Islands during a lecture series titled "From Shore to Sea."

The presentation, set for December 8 and December 9, will be delivered by Channel Islands' sanctuary and park cultural resource experts Robert Schwemmer and Kelly Minas.

They will discuss two recently explored wrecks off Anacapa Island—a mysterious shipwreck of a possible prohibition era rum runner and a sunken World War II era torpedo bomber.

These are among over two dozen wrecks studied around the Channel Islands that document over 150 years of evolving maritime enterprises.

There are an estimated 150 or more shipwrecks thought to exist around the islands as well as submerged prehistoric sites dating back more than 10,000 years, according to park researchers.

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By Christie Wilson - Honolulu Advertiser

A partial silver-plated serving set salvaged from the USS Arizona just months after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor is being withdrawn from auction, according to the Ohio auction house that was planning the sell the artifacts.

A spokeswoman for Cowan's Auctions Inc. said today the company "has no intention of selling the silver" at its Dec. 9 auction and is waiting for official notification from the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps that the artifacts cannot be sold.

Cowan's estimated the potential value of the lot comprising 24 pieces at up to $20,000.

The company received them on consignment from a heir of Navy diver Carl Webster Keenum, who collected the pieces sometime between May 1942 and May 1943 while salvaging ammunition, weaponry and personal items from the devastated U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. Keenum died in 1964.


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From Dominican Today

The famed treasure salvage expert Burt Webber Jr refutes reports that his current project within Dominican territorial waters has encountered friction with the Government in his ongoing operation in the Silver Banks protected area, as Dominican Today published recently.

The treasure hunter also specifies that his current venture seeks to recover artifacts on the sunken Spanish galleon "Solo Dios Gloria" and not the French "Scipion" as the article states.

Webber, who contacted DT just days after the article "Doubts surface as treasure hunter hits it big off Dominican Republic” was published, notes that he’s been conducting salvage operations in the country for 32 years, during which he has “had no problem with any Dominican governmental agency.”

In that regard, the Culture Ministry’s Sub-aquatic Patrimony Office director Wilfredo Feliz on Tuesday confirmed Webber’s assertion that the salvage work continues, and that the agreement to search for the artifacts is in effect.

“There’s a contract between the Dominican Government and Webber’s venture which is in effect, he has the concession for his operations to go about his work.”

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 From Kent News

Divers are being warned to treat a wrecked ship where 75 crewmen died with utmost respect, especially as it is an official war grave.

What’s left of HMS Ghurka lays on the sea bed off Dungeness. It sank on February 8, 1917, after hitting a mine laid by a German U-boat.

But it has been subjected to repeated dives, with items being taken and sold to secondhand stores and souvenir shops as nick-nacks.

One magazine has even gone so far as listing it at number 76 in its Top 100 Best Wreck Dives.

Divernet refused to talk to Kent on Sunday, but it did say on its website: “Divers should remember that the heavy loss of life makes this a war grave.”

And holiday-diver.com also warns divers to stay out of the wreck, saying: “Divers will no longer be allowed to penetrate” the Ghurka.

In fact last year the Ministry of Defense finally agreed with campaigners like Christopher Conn, of Folkestone.

By Eloi Rouyer - AFP

In a dark space in a new exhibition at Arles museum in southern France, underwater sounds play over looped video footage of scientists on underwater digs along the Rhone riverbed.

An intrepid team of archaeologists have been diving for 20 years, struggling with poor visibility, strong currents and flipper-nibbling bullhead catfish to bring up the 500 or so objects now being displayed.

In 2007, just when these Indiana Joneses of the water were ready to hang up their wet suits, they bumped into intriguing column fragments, friezes and chunks of mausoleums.

And then they brought up the most extraordinary buried treasure of all: a bust of Julius Caesar.

The find, dated 46 BC, is all the more remarkable for likely being made during the emperor's lifetime and provides the centrepiece for the exhibition organised by Luc Long, head of the French state department for archaeological, subaquatic and deepsea research.

The "unifying theme" in "Caesar, the Rhone for Memory", running to September 2010, is "to maintain the feeling of going on a journey with the archaeologist, following every stage of their work from the site of the digs right up to the restoration and exhibition of the artifacts", says its designer Pierre Berthier.

The collection shows ancient Arles was not only a port and place of passage, but "decorated" and "monumental" says Long, "an ostentatious facade aiming to display Rome's wealth and power".

The most stunning finds are together in the last room of the exhibition that Long calls "the saint of saints".

Alongside Caesar is the 1.8-metre (six-food) marble statue of the god Neptune dating from the beginning of the third century AD, and a bronze satyr with its hands tied behind its back.

"We made new and very beautiful discoveries in 2009," Long said, "which leaves one thinking that we have not come to the end of the reserves that this great natural museum -- the Rhone river -- still holds".


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From AFP

Search teams said on Monday that they had found the wreck of the British destroyer HMS Volage, whose sinking in 1946 off Albania prompted a diplomatic row and is seen as an early episode of the Cold War.

The wreckage of the vessel was found in the Ionian Sea by a team from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, the Albanian Archaeology Institute and Albanian defense ministry, project spokesperson Auron Tare said.

The Volage sank on October 22, 1946, when it hit a mine near the Albanian port of Saranda, as it raced to the aid of the HMS Saumarez, a second British destroyer which itself had been hit by a mine shortly before.

Forty-four sailors lost their lives and 42 more were injured in the incident which severely strained relations between Britain and then Soviet ally Albania.

It was one of several incidents involving Royal Navy ships getting into difficulties in Albanian waters at the time, and together the events became known as the Corfu Channel Incident.

The wreckage of the Volage was found three months ago, but the British and Albanian governments have only now decided to make the discovery public, Tare said.

By Enkayaar - Bollywood Trade News Network

Though it has been a subject that keeps on being visited on a regular basis by Hollywood, i.e. going for a treasure hunt inside the water, now for the first time (in Bollywood) a treasure hunt film BLUE with the under waters as the background is going to hit the silver screen in a short time from now.

The name in itself is an enigma as Blue is one of the colors whose interpretations keep on getting manifested over the years.

May be, the treasure hunt in water has not been a subject with the Indian film making fraternity owing to the fact that there are hardly any historical references about a ship laden with goods drowning off the Indian coasts.

As a matter of fact the ships used to start from the Indian coasts laden with the booty and were either pirated, or drowned in the Pacific Ocean towards their final destination to different European countries, and this is one of the reasons why Hollywood keeps on revisiting these topics, as they have got abundant source material to back upon.

The success of The Pirates of Caribbean is a monumental testimony to the interest that films of this genre continue to evince, among the aficionados around the world.

No wonder Blue is also situated in the Pacific Island and not in any country of the Indian Ocean.