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From N.C. Department of Cultural Resources

While their peers may be wiling away spring break on the sunny beaches of Key West or the Bahamas, 11 graduate students from East Carolina University (ECU) and two interns from UNC-Wilmington, are looking for treasure in murky tanks of crusty old objects.

They are examining artifacts from the shipwreck of Modern Greece, a Civil War era blockade runner that sank in June 1862.

Under the direction of Susanne Grieve, director of conservation for ECU’s Maritime History program; and Nathan Henry, assistant state archaeologist, Underwater Archaeology Branch, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the students will examine some of the 11,500 artifacts that were recovered from the wreck which was discovered lying just 300 yards off Fort Fisher in 25 feet of water in 1962.

Some of the artifacts were conserved and now are exhibited at the N.C. Maritime Museums in Beaufort and Southport, the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh and other museums in and out of state. Thousands more remain to be researched.

The students will determine the type and condition of artifacts, and will record, catalog, photograph, and evaluate future conservation needs. From water filled tanks the students have retrieved cases of Enfield rifle muskets, antler handled knives, hand cuffs, hoes, picks, and other 1860s farm and household goods.

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From Art Daily

The finding of a human skull and bones of Prehistoric mega fauna, among them a gomphothere, in a flooded cave at the Peninsula of Yucatan, motivated the implementation of the interdisciplinary research project coordinated by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) to continue exploration at the site and the study of these archaeological vestiges that could be more than 10,000 years old.

Archaeologist Pilar Luna Erreguerena, subdirector of INAH Underwater Archaeology, informed that after the ancient remains were discovered by 3 specialized speleodivers, a specific project will be formulated for the site known as Hoyo Negro, part of the Aktun-Ha flooded caves system in Quintana Roo.

“This might be a very ancient site, so we need to protect it with great care. According to images captured to conduct registration, materials present a good conservation state. Besides the skull, we found a large bone that might be a humerus”.

The INAH specialist mentioned that the finding took place after a long exploration stage that began 4 years ago. Speleodivers covered the 1200 meters long tunnel up to the entrance to a pool known as Hoyo Negro and then descended 60 meters, where they detected a human skull and long bone, remains of extinct mega fauna and ashes of a bonfire”.

She added that material was found at 3 different points of the flooded cave, “they were found 20 to 30 meters away from each other, so we cannot determine that they all correspond to a single event; it is necessary to conduct further studies. Vestiges cannot be connected yet with any culture nor establish its exact dating”.

Luna Erreguerena commented that while other findings of bone remains made in flooded caves at the Peninsula of Yucatan are dated 10,000 years old, this discovery’s age cannot be determined until morphological and DNA studies are completed.

“This will happen after the In-situ registration stage and sampling for their analysis is concluded. Based on a meticulous study, we will consider taking the vestiges off the water without damaging them”.

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By Richard Shears - Mail Online

A diving team is being put together in Papua New Guinea to swim down to the wreckage of a rust-and-coral-covered plane in the hope of solving one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries - the 74-year-old disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

The 40-year-old American and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while attempting to fly around the world in 1937 in a Lockheed Model 10 Electra plane and most theories say they crashed near Howland Island in the central Pacific.

She and her navigator had completed 22,000 miles of the journey when they arrived at Lae in New Guinea, as the country was then known, and just 7,000 miles across the Pacific remained before they were due to land back in the U.S.

They took off on July 2, 1937, heading for Howland Island, 2,500 miles away but ran into trouble near the island, if radio reports purporting to be theirs can be believed.

Miss Earhart radioed to a U.S. ship in the area, the Itasca: 'We must be on you but cannot see you - but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.'

The transmissions were the last anyone heard from the flyer and it was assumed the plane had crashed near Howland Island.

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From CBC News

A historic shipwreck that's been moved to a Leamington, Ont., farm is deteriorating quickly, and now the property owner is giving the town until the end of the year to remove it.

The N.J. Nessen was shipwrecked off the shores of Leamington on Lake Erie in 1929. Then, in the 1980s, parts of the Nessen were rediscovered during the construction of a marina.

In 1984, Robert McCracken offered to store the six-metre section of the wooden steamer ships' bow on his Comber, Ont., farm, near Leamington. After 27 years, McCracken said he's ready to see the badly deteriorating artifact off his property.

The town wants to relocate the marine treasure back to the Leamington Municipal Marina grounds and build a protective display around it.

"It's in very fragile condition right now, because it has been outside in the environment all this time," said Amanda Smith, Recreation and Culture Manager for the town of Leamington.

"We'll redesign a garden and put an enclosure over top of it, so that way, it can be on display, have some story boards, and really make it interactive."

 
Photo Jeremy Green/WA Museum

By Jane Hammond - The West Australian

Deep beneath the ocean, in waters west of Rottnest Island, lies a treasure trove of scuttled ships, military vehicles and abandoned aircraft.

For nearly 50 years the deepwater graveyard has remained mostly forgotten but new technology is helping to reveal its booty.

The first clues to the graveyard came in the 1990s when fishermen observed rich pickings in small areas of the ocean, leading to the theory that wrecks were lying on the sea floor.

Forensic work by a team from the WA Museum exposed records of the area being used as a maritime dump site from the 1930s to the 1950s and the search for the exact location of the wrecks began.

So far the team has uncovered 17 of the wreck sites out of a possible 54 and established the identity of five of the vessels.

Aerial surveys using mining industry equipment, which is able to detect evidence of iron, have helped in the search, as has the use of a two-person submarine.

Head of maritime archaeology at the museum, Jeremy Green, said the graveyard was in waters 70m to 100m deep.

It covered a large section of ocean floor, from an area 15km off the West End of Rottnest to the edge of the Perth Canyon.

He said the team had yet to discover the whereabouts of at least two Catalina aircraft that were scuttled after the end of World War II.

"The aerial survey work picked up eight or nine quite prominent targets that were obviously iron shipwrecks," Dr Green said.

"We then brought in technical divers who photographed the wrecks.

"We do know from records what was sunk in the deepwater graveyard but the positions were not well recorded. It wasn't just ships that were sunk.

"At the end of the Second World War, all of the equipment provided by the Americans for the war effort was dumped out there.

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From Past Horizons

The Antarctic Heritage Trust is a New Zealand based charity recognised internationally as the organisation which cares for the expedition bases associated with the famed polar explorers Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton.

These bases, built between 1901 and 1911, are located in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. The three wooden bases contain an estimated 15,000+ artefacts consisting of objects made from a variety of materials including timber, leather, glass and metal.

These sites are protected under the Antarctic Treaty System and have been listed on the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the World.

The Trust has a major international conservation project under-way to conserve the bases and the artefact collections. It is world-leading in terms of polar conservation.

Since 2006 conservators have been based year round at New Zealand’s science facility, Scott Base, conserving the artefact collections. Conservation work is carried out both on-site at the bases (during summer months) and at Scott Base (during summer and winter).

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By Alana West - Dexter Patch

Eighteen different programs were offered Saturday at the 30th annual Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival, held at Washtenaw Community College in Scio Township. The event benefits the Ford Seahorses Scuba Diving Club, a member of the Ford Motor Company's Employees Recreation Association.

Eight of the programs took those attending on a video tour to explore shipwrecks fathoms deep beneath the Great Lakes. Roughly 300 people attended the event.

Lori Courvoisier of Ann Arbor said that the event was a lot of fun.

"When you get divers together they tell a bunch of stories and plan trips," she said. "You can learn a lot of neat stuff about the Great Lakes."

Among the programs offered were presentations on the Lady Elgin, a ship that sunk in 1860, leading to the deaths of 300 people; a 206-foot three-mast schooner called the John Shaw that sunk in 1894 with 1,759 tons of coal in 128 feet of water; and the Marion Egan, which sunk in 1875 when it collided with the schooner E.R. Williams. Divers discovered standing masts and an intact cabin when they dove to investigate the wreck.

Ric Mixter, a diver and owner of the documentary studio Airworthy Productions based in Saginaw, presented his documentary on the Edmund Fitzgerald, a Great Lakes freighter that sunk in a Lake Superior storm on Nov. 10, 1975. During his presentation he talked about the various groups who have visited the shipwreck, including the explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1980.

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By Kristen Letsinger - Oanow

For some, swimming with sharks is the stuff of nightmares. But for Fabien Cousteau, it’s just another day at work.

In fact, Cousteau, who is the grandson of late ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, helped create what he calls a “shark submersible,” a submarine that looks like a shark to let him better study the creatures.

“The connection we have with marine (animals) is much deeper than we think,” he said. “It’s much more than just DNA.”

Cousteau spoke at Auburn University Saturday evening as the keynote speaker for the “BLUE on Tour” festival that was held at the university this weekend.

After discussing the legacy of his grandfather, Cousteau shared images of the devastation caused by the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The beaches may now look pristine, he said, but the ocean is still feeling the effects of the spill.

In places in the Gulf of Mexico, Cousteau said there is a 12-inch layer of what he calls “fluffy stuff” sitting on top of the water. This mixture of oil and other chemicals suffocates the creatures living at the bottom of the ocean, he explained.

Those bottom feeders and other animals also ingest the chemicals, and are then eaten themselves by bigger fish.

“We have to keep in mind that the oil that’s at the bottom of the ocean, down in the Gulf, is going to stay with us for decades,” he said.

Cousteau closed his presentation by giving the audience three things they can do to help sustain the Earth’s oceans:

Stop dumping plastics and stop using single-use plastics.

Use a seafood watch card that shows which seafood should be avoided. These cards can be downloaded at www.seafoodwatch.org.

Use social media outlets to make others aware of the oceans’ plight.