HOT NEWS !

By Giles Tremlett
 

Deep sea treasure hunters have located two potentially valuable wrecks lying off the west coast of Ireland, opening the way for a legal battle over who owns treasure deposited on the seabed in international waters.

Shipwreck company Odyssey Marine has filed claims on two wreck sites found after months of scouring the seabed in and around the English Channel with what it said was advanced new search equipment.

The sites lie under between 400 and 600 metres of water about 100 miles to the west of Dingle, Co Kerry. 

The Florida-based company said the sites, which are 37 miles apart, appeared to contain the remains of steel-hulled vessels.

"Odyssey believes that valuable cargo may be located at or near both sites," said the company.

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By Randy Garsee
 

A few years ago, what looked like a pile of wood surfaced in the Red River near Fort Towson but was more than a pile of wood... a lot more. KTEN's Randy Garsee traveled to the remote location to see what attraction historians and archaeologists alike.

This is it: a pile of wood.

If you didn't look closely, you might think it was just another dead tree, like this one, dragged into the Red River by a flood. But it's no tree.

John Davis says, "This is the only example of that type of craftsmanship that is known to have been archaeologically excavated."

John Davis is with the Oklahoma Historical Society at Fort Towson. He says these waterlogged remains attracted himself and archaeologists from Texas A&M.

"It's part of our history. It's one of the minute details of the part transportation played in the evolution of Oklahoma."

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By Gary Davis

Lincoln Tribune and other sources are reporting on the mysterious sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. Their article, "Profile America: Edmund Fitzgerald Sinks," reminds us of the largest ship on the lake November 10, 1975, sinking only a few miles from safety in apparent cyclonic conditions. When the Edmund Fitzgerald went down she was carrying 26,000 tons of iron ore. 

The sinking of the ship is a mystery for several reasons. The ship was a state of the art vessel. Captain Earnest Mcsorley, a very experienced seaman, piloted the ship.

However, perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the tragedy was there was absolutely no communication. There was not an SOS or any sign of trouble; the ship just disappeared.

The anniversary has sparked a documentary by Mark Gumbinger who has chronicled 31 documentaries about Great Lakes' phenomenon.

His suggestions for the event include water hatches that were faulty and the long ship breaking in two from the weather. Further, the possibility of hitting an object or shoals followed by a quick sinking is examined.

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From Conn Post

S. Ford Weiskittel, president of the U.S. Trireme Trust, which supported a Greek initiative to test a replica of a fifth century BCE warship, will present a slide lecture on the adventure at Fairfield University on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at 7:30 p.m. in the Multimedia Room of the DiMenna-Nyselius Library. The lecture is free.

A remarkable technological achievement, the Greek trireme was designed to ram other ships. Powered by both sail and oar, with a crew numbering 120, the warships are credited with saving Greek civilization from Persian conquest because of their role in the Athenian victory over the Persian fleet at the battle of Salamis.

About 30 years ago, several British scholars undertook to establish definitively just what a trireme looked like and how it was rowed. Their task was made difficult because nobody had ever found a trireme.

While archaeologists had found numerous wrecks of ancient merchant vessels on the bottom of the Mediterranean, it is thought that the trireme ships, built of light wood, probably broke up in the surf, decomposed or were towed away by victorious enemies.

By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki

Monday marks the 33rd anniversary of the often-chronicled sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. But this month also marks a landmark 50th anniversary of another famous Great Lakes shipwreck -- the Carl D. Bradley in Lake Michigan.

The Detroit Historical Society is holding its annual remembrance for Great Lakes mariners lost at sea on the Fitzgerald anniversary, but this year, the activities will focus on the Bradley and include newly displayed artifacts from the lost ship.

"It's a reminder of the storms of November," said local lake historian Mac McAdam of Dearborn. "Everybody is trying to make their last run before the winter locks them in. They're running fast and hard now."

No one knows exactly how many ships have gone down in the Great Lakes.

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By Bret Christians

A public quarrel has erupted over who really located the long-lost wreck of HMAS Sydney.

The row was sparked this week by a request from the high-powered Cole Commission of Inquiry being held in Sydney for information about the wreck.

Two University of WA academics, who say they have been air-brushed out of the history of the search, have documented their claim to have provided the location of the wreck 10 years ago.

They have also revealed that an earlier group of researchers sent the navy on a secret wild goose chase which wasted $1 million and delayed the finding of the wreck for a decade.

By Grace Hammond

Far beneath the waves off the coast of the Bahamas lies the Black Hole of Andros and it does not sound like a lot of fun.

Paul Rose says: "There's a layer of bacterial matter 18m down, it's incredibly oily and, as you enter, you lose all visibility.

It's unusual to smell anything underwater but, because your skin absorbs it, you can smell it – like rotten eggs. It's also baking hot, about 35º C, and you get quite disorientated."

Paul is a former vice president of the Royal Geographical Society, the base commander of the British Antarctic Survey base and is now the presenter of Oceans, an eight-parts series that covers maritime archaeology, biology, conservation, history and culture.

A breezy east Londoner, who began diving in 1969, Paul ventured into the black hole in search of evidence about how the oceans work. Located in the part of the Atlantic Ocean from which the Gulf Stream springs, it offers an insight into a past world – a snapshot of what the oceans were like three-and-a-half billion years ago.

"I've really wanted to present a series about great diving expeditions with great settings," he says.

"I've always been inspired by slightly-old fashioned films, along the lines of the programmes that first inspired me to dive, like the great Jacques Cousteau expeditions and the adventure series Sea Hunt."

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From Perth Now

Scavengers have been accused of stealing WA's maritime history by taking artefacts and bottles from the seabed at an historical Fremantle site.

The WA Museum said divers had been disturbing the seabed to remove material from the historical Long Jetty site and Bathers Bay.

Museum acting chief executive Diana Jones said Long Jetty was declared an historic site in 1988 and was protected under the WA Maritime Archaeology Act 1973.

“Long Jetty was recognised as a site of historical significance after the museum’s maritime archaeologists surveyed the area and found a wealth of objects dating as far back as the 1840s,” Ms Jones said.

Thousands of bottles and jars, cutlery, lumps of coal, sheep bones and other items were surveyed and documented. Among the personal belongings recovered were watches, toys, shoes, costume jewellery and coins.

The jetty was at its busiest during the gold rush days of the early 1890s.

It became known as the Long Jetty when the original Ocean Jetty was extended in 1887.