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From UPI
 

A British fortune hunter is heading to a Pacific island in search of more than $250 million worth of treasure supposedly buried there by 19th century pirates.

Shaun Whitehead is leading an expedition to Cocos Island in hopes of discovering treasure allegedly buried there by a British trader, Capt. William Thompson, in 1820, The Daily Telegraph reported Sunday.

The British newspaper said as the story goes, Thompson stole gold, silver and jewelry amassed by Spanish authorities in Lima, Peru, that he was entrusted to transport to Mexico.

Thompson and his crew allegedly killed Spanish sailors on their ship and headed for Cocos Island, off the coast of Costa Rica, to bury their loot, which included 113 gold religious statues, 200 chests of jewels, 273 swords with jeweled hilts, 1,000 diamonds, solid gold crowns, 150 chalices, and hundreds of gold and silver bars.

Whitehead and a team of about 15 will scour the island over the 10-day expedition using non-invasive technology not used in previous expeditions to the island.

"This is a scientific survey, including archaeological, geological and biodiversity aspects," Whitehead said.

"Unlike previous trips, we are not going to dig vast holes or do anything destructive at all.

The real treasure of the island is its natural beauty.Anything else we find there is simply a bonus."

By Neil Prior - BBC News

DNA mapping has shed light on a 260-year-old mystery of the origins of a child shipwrecked on Anglesey, who helped shape medical history.

The boy of seven or eight, who could not speak English or Welsh, washed up on the north Wales coast with his brother between 1743 and 1745. Named Evan Thomas, he was adopted by a doctor and went on to show bone setting skills never seen before in the UK.

Now a DNA study has revealed he came from the Caucasus Mountains.

The boys' dark skin and foreign language led people to believe they were Spanish - a myth which went on for hundreds of years.

Evan's brother survived only a few days, but he went on to demonstrate he already possessed bone setting skills, including the first recorded use in Britain of traction and splints to pull apart the over-lapping edges of breaks and immobilise limbs while healing took place.

Analysis of DNA from the 13th generation of Evan's descendants is now indicating that the brothers came from an area of the Caucasus Mountains, including Georgia, Ossetia and Southern Russia.

Anglesey bone setter DNA project director John Rowlands said: "When we embarked on the project, all the historical evidence seemed to point to Spain as being the most likely origins of Evan Thomas.

"Not only was there his exotic appearance and language, but also the fact that many Spanish ships were sailing past Wales at the time of the shipwreck, in order to supply troops in support of the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland.

"But early on in the analysis we were able to rule out British or Spanish descent, and now, after studying 300 gigabytes of data, our team at Edinburgh University have found 48 out of 51 points of similarity with DNA originating in the Caucasus.

Full story...

By Jack Horan - Charlotte Observer

Seventy years ago last month, a convoy of 19 merchant ships guarded by five armed naval escorts sailed south along the Outer Banks, making its way toward Key West, Fla.

The United States had entered World War II eight months earlier and shipping along the Atlantic coast from New York to New Orleans was under attack by German submarines.

The targets of the U-boats were tankers and freighters that potentially carried fuel and supplies for the Allied war effort.

After Convoy KS-520 swung around Cape Hatteras on July 15, 1942, a German sub stalking it fired four torpedoes. They hit three merchant ships, sinking a tanker and damaging two others.

When the sub surfaced, two U.S. aircraft and gunfire from an escort sank it. A Navy tug sent to tow the damaged ships sank when it hit a mine in a defensive U.S. minefield.

Today, the ship, Bluefields, a Nicaraguan tanker, and the sub, U-576, repose on the seabed.

Their exact location isn’t known. Both shipwrecks are the focus of a research project, now in its fifth year, to locate and document with photos and videos ships that sank off North Carolina during the war.

The project is called the Battle of the Atlantic Expedition.

The expedition is a collaboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Coastal Studies Institute of the University of North Carolina, East Carolina University and other federal and state partners.

By Jonathan Brown - The Independent

International action is urgently required to save the world's historic shipwrecks from the ravages of commercial fishing, experts say.

Industrial trawling, capable of destroying fragile underwater heritage, is occurring on a scale that is creating an archaeological catastrophe comparable to the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad or the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, they warn.

The seabed is often described as the world's greatest museum but it is estimated that 42 per cent of the globe's three million wrecks may have been damaged by trawling.

The scale of the devastation means the chances of repeating the recovery of vessels such as the Mary Rose are decreasing, while there are fears that HMS Victory – the 1737 predecessor to Nelson's flagship – has already been damaged by trawlers in the English Channel and is at risk of total destruction.

Dr Sean Kingsley of Wreck Watch International is calling for the creation of national "red lists" for shipwrecks of major international importance similar to those created by the International Council of Museums (Icom) for cultural objects.

But he said attempts to safeguard sunken vessels, some dating back to the earliest civilisations, were being hampered by a lack of political will and a shortage of funds.

By Andy Brockmam - Save Archaeology

Ministers Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond are in the firing line as the Ministry of Defence admits Odyssey Marine Exploration is already preparing to cash in on HMS Victory and the remains of over 1000 British sailors without the permission of the Government.

In a major and disturbing development in the growing HMS Victory scandal, the Ministry of Defence has been forced to admit that the flagship of American commercial salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. the Odyssey Explorer, has been actively preparing to recover artefacts from the wreck site of HMS Victory, the flagship of Admiral Sir John Balchen, lost with all hands in October 1744, even before permission has been given by Government Ministers Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond to permit the recovery of artefacts from the ship.

What makes the revelation that Odyssey has jumped the gun on the Minister’s decision even more embarrassing for the Cameron Government is the fact that the un-authorised work may have been sanctioned by Sir Robert Balchin, Lord Lingfield, a close associate of Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt and former senior official in the Conservative Party who was ennobled by Prime Minister David Cameron in December 2010.

Lord Lingfield is chair of Odyssey’s ostensible employers, the charity the Maritime Heritage Foundation which he founded in October 2010 specifically to take control of the wreck of HMS Victory.

In January 2012 the MHF became legal owners of the wreck, although their freedom of action is supposedly strictly controlled by a “Deed of Gift” imposed by the Ministry of Defence to protect the public interest of the United Kingdom over what was formerly a sovereign naval vessel and particularly the remains of over one thousand Royal Navy personnel who died in the sinking and for whose welfare the Ministry of Defence retains responsibility.

The news that Odyssey had pre-empted the decision of Ministers came in a letter from Deputy Command Secretary at Navy Command Portsmouth, Mr Simon Routh to Mr Robert Yorke of the Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee.

The JNAPC contacted the Ministry of Defence in response to growing rumours in the archaeological community that Odyssey Explorer was on station over the Victory and could be carrying out the unauthorised recovery of material from the site.

From the Saratogian

National Park Service archaeologists conducting underwater surveys of the Hudson River in early August will be presenting general information about underwater archaeology techniques and equipment at a “discovery tent” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 11, during the Cardboard Boat Race at Fort Hardy Beach on Route 29 in Schuylerville.

The team will also present preliminary findings in a public meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 13, at the American Legion on Clancy Street in Schuylerville.

The underwater surveys will take place in the Hudson River between Schuylerville and Saratoga National Historical Park in Stillwater.

The archaeology team will be using a spectrum of non-invasive surveying techniques, including side-scan sonar, magnetometry and sub-bottom profiling, to assemble valuable data.

By Christopher Bodeen - Seattle Times

A lifelong scuba diving obsession led Steven Schwankert to the tale of the HMS Poseidon and the startling discovery that the British submarine, which sank off the northeastern coast of China in the 1930s, had been raised by the Chinese in 1972.

That revelation lies at the heart of Schwankert's upcoming book, "The Real Poseidon Adventure: China's Secret Salvage of Britain's Lost Submarine" and an accompanying documentary film chronicling his search for answers about what became of the sunken vessel.

The seven-year transcontinental quest saw frustrations, triumphs and deeply emotional experiences, none more so than bringing together descendants of the Poseidon's crew and sharing with them new information about the submarine's fate.

"I only wish we'd been able to find more relatives.

It feels like we've taken on this incredible responsibility of being custodians of this history," said the 42-year-old Schwankert, an American journalist and diving instructor who has lived in Beijing for more than a decade.

The Poseidon was barely two years old and among the most modern submarines in the British fleet when it arrived at a leased British naval base on Liugong Island, four kilometers (2.5 miles) offshore from the port of Weihai.

While conducting exercises on June 9, 1931, the captain inadvertently turned into a Chinese cargo ship that had altered course in the same direction to avoid hitting the submarine, which was traveling on the surface.

Its hull shattered, the Poseidon sank within four minutes, coming to rest on the sea floor 30 meters (100 feet) below.

Thirty men scrambled out of hatches before it went down, but 26 remained inside, eight in the watertight forward torpedo room.

Full story...

From Kitsap Sun

A public memorial has been planned to celebrate the life of David D. Scheinost, the Department of Natural Resources scuba diver who died July 24 while diving in the waters off Bainbridge Island.

His family has invited anyone who knew him and those who want to pay their respects to the memorial scheduled for this weekend.

A public viewing will be held Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Edwards Memorial Chapel in Lakewood. The funeral is scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Auburn Adventist Academy Church in Auburn.

An account also has been created at Boeing Employees Credit Union to help the family with expenses, including the purchase of a headstone and other debts tied to Scheinost's passing. The account is set up under David Scheinost's name.

Scheinost, 24, died last month while collecting geoducks for his job with DNR to test for paralytic shellfish poison.

The Kitsap County Coroner is waiting for the results of lab tests to release a cause of death.

At the time of his death Scheinost was living with his girlfriend, Angela Singleton, in Tacoma. He was known for his positive, outgoing personality, a contagious laugh and his love of music, according to his family.