Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

__________________________________________________________________________________

Turkish Daily News
By Ömer Erbíl
March 29, 2007

Journey from Foça to Marseille.. A group, who built the replica of ships used by old Foça people 2,600 year ago, will set to sail next year. The voyage will last two months.

The 360 Degree Research Group, which had built the replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II, is now getting ready to initiate a new project anticipating a voyage from Phokaia (modern Foça) to the Marseille via two replica ancient ships.

According to the project, the ships will reflect the periodic features of 2,600 year ago and be built in line with the archaeological characteristics of the period.

The ships are scheduled to set sail from İzmir's Eskifoça (Old Foça) in April of 2008 and arrive in France's Marseille after a two-month voyage, following the route of ships in 600 B.C. and thus stopping at the Mediterranean and Aegean ports of Molyvos, Ithaka and Aléria, spots where the ancient Foça people used to establish colonies.

The building of two ancient ships, planned both with sailing and paddle, will kick off at the end of April in İzmir's Urla district. The sailing commercial ship will be 15 meters long and the warship with paddles will be 19 meters.

Project adviser Osman Erkurt of the 360 Degree Research Group said, “We already discussed the issue with Marseille Municipality, which assured us that they would support our project. It seems that Marseille will see lots of Turkish flags next year.”

The research group's project will also include an international symposium in Foça where scientists will make a presentation on Foça colonies as well as an exhibition in Marseille where ancient Foça ships will be featured. Besides these activities, works will be carried out in an effort to make İzmir and Marseille into brother cities and a documentary featuring the ship's voyages will be shot.

Uluburun:
A replica of the oldest known shipwreck, Uluburun II, was built by the 360 Degree Historical Research Association in Urla, İzmir and displayed in Bodrum as part of activities marking the 80th anniversary of Sabotage Day in July.

Considered to be one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, the 3,300-year-old Uluburun took its place in history as the oldest commercial vessel while the artifacts - including a 3,300-year-old seal believed to belong to Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, a huge amphora and jewelry - excavated from the shipwreck excited science and archeology circles.

The artifacts discovered in the Uluburun shipwreck are still on display at the Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Courier Journal
March 27, 2007


OGDEN DUNES, Ind. -- An archaeological team is trying to determine if a Lake Michigan shipwreck might have had ties to the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape from the South during the 1800s.

A member of the Briggs Project Team said the group has begun analyzing the wreckage off Ogden Dunes beach and has combed through historical records in LaPorte and Porter counties for information about the role the area played in providing fugitive slaves with an exit route to freedom in Canada.

"There's a good possibility you have a big piece of history here in your back yard," Roger Barski told guests of the Ogden Dunes Historical Society during a presentation on the team's research Sunday.

The team began studying the ship, designated the Alpha Wreck, in summer 2005.

Barski said the wreck will be excavated this summer. Through study of the ship's construction, the group hopes to gather enough information to learn its name, the captain, the owner and the cause of the wreck.

Barski said members think it was a wooden schooner, a type of ship that was inexpensive to build and operate, and was popular on the Great Lakes throughout the 1800s.

Peg Schoon, the wife of Ken Schoon, author of the book "Calumet Beginnings," alerted Barski and his fellow archaeologists to the Ogden Dunes shipwreck and the writings of historian William Briggs.

Barski said Briggs wrote of a wooden ship that transported runaway slaves from the area west of Burns Ditch to freedom in Canada. According to Briggs' story, slavery supporters eventually seized and burned the ship in the area of the wreck.

"Indiana was a free state, and many slaves came through our area," said Ruth Loftus, a Briggs Project Team member. "Many lumbermen and boat captains were anti-slavery."

Barski said a similar ship, the HMS General Hunter, has been excavated in Canada at a cost of $3 million.

"It's an expensive proposition," Barski said.

The Briggs Project Team is self-funded, and "we don't have $3 million, so this is going to be a bare-bones operation," he said.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Chronicle Herald
By Bill Power
March 26, 2007

Archeologists believe many dramatic tales about one of Nova Scotia’s more exciting historical periods will be extracted from some remains of a 200-year-old ship found buried in clay prior to the commencement of the Halifax Harbour cleanup.

"This is a significant find," archeologist Michael Sanders said Wednesday as artifacts from the wreck site, about 200 metres north of the Woodside ferry terminal, were prepared for a rare public viewing.

"The hull uncovered at the site is an excellent example of a brig from this era in spectacular condition," the researcher said of an ongoing assessment of data and samples collected at the site.

A musket ball, a button and a comb carved out of bone are just some the artifacts found at the site. One especially intriguing find is a piece of a pocket knife handle with the initials "E.W." emblazoned on one side.

An enormous amount of archeological data was also collected.

"We know of only three other similar vessels that have had similar archeological work undertaken and there is certainly a lot more to be learned about this particular brig."

Teams of archeologists and volunteers co-ordinated by Cultural Resource Management Group Ltd. in Halifax converged on the Woodside location and a major portion of the harbour cleanup was rescheduled after questions were raised about the potential significance of some wooden ship remnants, originally spotted buried under clay and rubble about a decade earlier.

There was some initial speculation it was an abandoned ferry that was in the path of the massive harbour cleanup project. It was not long before archeologists realized they were dealing with something more significant.

Remnants of a brig from the 1800s, a workhorse of a vessel with two masts, slightly bigger than a schooner like the Bluenose, appeared as mud was cleared away.

Mr. Sanders and colleague Darryl Kelman will cover details of the excavation of the shipwreck and their analysis of the site during a March 27 presentation, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History on Summer Street in Halifax.

The general public is invited, but seating is limited.

The archeologists determined by examining construction techniques and components the vessel is from the War of 1812 era and could very well have been destroyed during a powerful hurricane that hit the bustling wartime Port of Halifax in 1813, killing 14 people.

An examination of newspaper reports of the time indicate as many as 116 ships were severely damaged and about 40 were beached on the Dartmouth side of the harbour in the huge windstorm.

Among the big man-of-war battleships and commercial schooners destroyed was a mysterious two-masted, square-rigged brig, and this is where the story becomes more complex and interesting.

Halifax was a very busy Royal Navy base supporting a blockade against U.S. and French shipping in the big war, often described as America’s second battle for independence.

Pirates and privateers loved the quick-turning brigs and so did the fledging U.S. Navy. Who owned this ship? Had it been captured? Many questions remain to be answered about this ship’s history and its possible involvement in the war.

There is also a possibility the vessel was constructed in Nova Scotia, which could add a new level of significance to ongoing and future archeological research.

"It is a time when you could have seen sailing ships passing offshore from just about anywhere in Nova Scotia," said Mr. Sanders. "Halifax was booming because of the war and the harbour was chock full of vessels. . . . It’s a fascinating period."

_________________________________________________________________________________


The Courier
March 25, 2007

Have the shifting sands of Montrose beach revealed the other half of a 19th century shipwreck uncovered last year?

It was about this time last year that the bow section of a wooden boat, long buried beneath the sands, was exposed for a brief period by the movement of the tides at the north end of the beach.

Last week another wreck partially reappeared, around half a mile further along the beach.

“It is of similar construction to last year’s wreck and this time it is a stern section, with the rudder still clearly visible,” said local shipping historian John Aitken.

“Although many boats have foundered in Montrose Bay in high seas and there must be many wrecks under the sand, there is a possibility that this latest find, some distance away from last year’s, may be the opposite end of the same boat.”

Mr Aitken has contacted marine archaeologist Dr Colin Martin, who recorded last year’s wreck. He thought that was probably a coastal workhorse, small but heavily built, dated between 1850 and 1900.

Because this kind of boat was so ordinary and so many were built, the shipwrights did not think them important enough to keep details.

Finding a wreck such as this provided the only detailed information available.


____

__________________________________________________________________________________

Reuters
March 23, 2007

MADRID - Three hundred years after the British warship Sussex sank in a storm off southern Spain, researchers are preparing to dive to the site to see if it was carrying a fortune in gold coins.

Spain and Britain said on Friday they had agreed to start underwater exploration to find the ship that sank near Gibraltar in 1694. Any treasure will be claimed by Britain, the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.

According to the Council for British Archaeology's (CBA) website, the Sussex was taking money to the Duke of Savoy in Italy in exchange for his help in the war against French King Louis XIV.

It says the booty could now be worth hundreds of millions of dollars (pounds).

The CBA has criticised a deal Britain has done with Florida-based salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, which will run the dives under which Odyssey will receive a share of whatever is found on the wreck.

By Michael Perry
March 21, 2007

Sydney - A 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault proves that Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia, says a new book which details the secret discovery of Australia.

The book "Beyond Capricorn" says the map, which accurately marks geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonca lead a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 - almost 250 years before Britain's Captain James Cook.

Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small map he could recognise all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in Sydney - the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.

"It was even so accurate that I found I could draw in the modern airport runways, to scale in the right place, without any problem at all," Trickett told Reuters on Wednesday.

Trickett said he stumbled across a copy of the map while browsing through a Canberra book shop eight years ago.

He said the shop had a reproduction of the Vallard Atlas, a collection of 15 hand drawn maps completed no later than 1545 in France. The maps represented the known world at the time.

Two of the maps called "Terra Java" had a striking similarity to Australia's east coast except at one point the coastline jutted out at right angles for 1 500km.

"There was something familiar about them but they were not quite right - that was the puzzle. How did they come to have all these Portuguese place names?," Trickett said.

Trickett believed the cartographers who drew the Vallard maps had wrongly aligned two Portuguese charts they were copying from.

It is commonly accepted that the French cartographers used maps and "portolan" charts acquired illegally from Portugal and Portuguese vessels that had been captured, Trickett said.

"The original portolan maps would have been drawn on animal hide parchments, usually sheep or goat skin, of limited size," he explained. "For a coastline the length of eastern Australia, about 3 500km, they would have been 3 to 4 charts."

"The Vallard cartographer has put these individual charts together like a jigsaw puzzle. Without clear compass markings its possible to join the southern chart in two different ways. My theory is it had been wrongly joined."

Using a computer Trickett rotated the southern part of the Vallard map 90 degrees to produce a map which accurately depicts Australia's east coast.

"They provided stunning proof that Portuguese ships made these daring voyages of discovery in the early 1520s, just a few years after they had sailed north of Australia to reach the Spice Islands - the Moluccas. This was a century before the Dutch and 250 years before Captain Cook," he said.

Trickett believes the original charts were made by Mendonca who set sail from the Portuguese base at Malacca with four ships on a secret mission to discover Marco Polo's "Island of Gold" south of Java.

If Trickett is right, Mendonca's map shows he sailed past Fraser Island off Australia's northeast coast, into Botany Bay in Sydney, and south to Kangaroo Island off southern Australia, before returning to Malacca via New Zealand's north island.

Mendonca's discovery was kept secret to prevent other European powers reaching the new land, said Trickett, who believes his theory is supported by discoveries of 16th century Portuguese artefacts on the Australian and New Zealand coasts.

__________________________________________________________________________________

IOL
March 20, 2007


Sarajevo/Mostar - A team of Bosnia-Herzegovina's archaeologists have discovered for the first time the remnants of fabled Illyrian ships in a marshland in southern Herzegovina, the team's head said on Tuesday.

Snjezana Vasilj told local media in Mostar that the ships were discovered about eight metres under the water of Hutovo blato, a marshland near the southern town of Capljina.

The Illyrian ships, believed to be more than 2 200 years old, had been known to historians only through Greek and Roman myths and legends, but their existence had never been physically proven, said Vasilj.

The Hutovo blato marshland, she said, became their final destination after they sailed in from the Adriatic Sea which is connected with the marshland by the Neretva River.

The Desilo location where the ships were discovered, said Vasilj, would be searched further, since the experts there also discovered about 80 amphoras lids and more than 30 fragments of amphora, some even with the hallmark.

Remains of an ancient Roman villa and an entire Roman spear were found at the same location, as well as seven graves, believed to date from the Bronze or Iron Age.

Illyrians were the earliest inhabitants of the Western Balkans, including Bosnia, long before the Roman Empire took control over the region.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

__________________________________________________________________________________

This Is North Scotland
By Andrew Hamilton
March 16, 2007


Relics from a fleet of Imperial German ships which have rested at Scapa Flow in Orkney for almost a century will go under the hammer today.

The ships, which originally numbered 74 but now stand at seven, arrived at Scapa Flow in November 1918 for internment after the armistice which ended World War I.

As surrender terms were being negotiated in June 1919, the German rear admiral in command at Scapa Flow gave the order for the German fleet to be scuttled to prevent it falling into Allied hands.

The seven battleships which remain have been declared monuments of national importance and have attracted great interest from tourists - particularly the thousands of scuba divers who flock to Scapa Flow each year.

Another who was drawn to the ships was lifelong collector of artefacts Norris Wood, who salvaged some items from the wrecks and stored them in his 17th-century home.

Mr Wood, who died in 1978, spent more than 50 years building up a vast collection of curiosities, and in 1961 bought Graemeshall House, on Orkney, specifically to house his wide-ranging display.

His relatives have decided the museum could not continue operating and are selling off the contents, which auctioneers Bonhams estimate could fetch between £70,000 and £100,000 in today's Edinburgh sale. A ship's telegraph, a clock, a chamber pot and parts of a porcelain dinner service from Kaiser Wilhelm II's fleet are among items to go under the hammer.

But those interested in the wider history of the islands may be more attracted to the Orkney chairs, early 16th-century Nuremberg "egg" or late 19th-century inkstand which are also on offer.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

__________________________________________________________________________________

March 15, 2007

MALACCA: Ten divers and three underwater photographers are in the team conducting surveys to recover artefacts from a 16th-century Portuguese warship lying four nautical miles off the mouth of the Malacca River, said Malacca Museum Corporation (Perzim) director Khamis Abbas.

He said the team members included those from Perzim, the navy, Customs, Archaeological, Heritage and National Oceanography departments, and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu.

He said that the divers were at risk because of the strong underwater currents, the depth of more than 40m and poor visibility.

“The divers can only be down there for 10 minutes each time.

“We are interested in looking for artefacts, but the safety of the team members comes first,” said Khamis.

Well-known Australian maritime archaeologist Dr Michael Flecker, who has carried out more than 100 explorations in countries around the region, discovered the wreck during a survey along the Straits of Malacca in 2005.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

__________________________________________________________________________________

Herald Tribune

March 14, 2007


MARSEILLE, France: A court in this southern French city on Wednesday fined four divers for pillaging artifacts from a Roman ship dating back to the second century B.C.

The divers were each fined €1,500 (US$1,980) for removing 30 objects, including about a dozen Roman vases, from the ship, lying in 57 meters (187 feet) of water off the coast of this Mediterranean port city. Two other divers were acquitted.

The Roman vessel was transporting about 1,000 vases of wine from the western coast of Italy when it sunk off the town of Ciotat, some 40 kilometers (24 miles) from Marseille.

The convicted divers removed the booty between 2001 and 2005, years after the sunken vessel was discovered in 1984.

They were not the only ones interested in the antique treasures. A 2005 inventory by authorities showed there were only 278 vases and other objects remaining on the boat out of an initial 1,000.

_________________________________________________________________________________

CDNN

By Leigh Jones

March 12, 2007


GALVESTON , Texas -- The underwater explorers who spent last week scouring the offshore continental shelf for signs of 19,000-year-old human habitation sailed back to Galveston empty-handed Saturday.

The crew of geologists, biologists and marine archeologists was hoping to find clues of human activity in the area during the last Ice Age, when they believe the Texas coastline extended 100 miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

The expedition did not turn up anything definitive, but the scientists did find what they believe to be signs of the ancient shoreline about 330 feet below the ocean's surface.

"A series of long vertical steps look like they may have been created by the movement of waves, which carve out a trough and deposit material farther up," wrote team member Todd Viola, who posted mission logs daily on the expedition's Web site. "This is the same profile we see on modern beaches."

Viola described the find as very exciting but noted further exploration would be necessary to verify the scientists' theory.

Last week's expedition, dubbed "Secrets of the Gulf," was headed by Robert Ballard, the oceanographer and explorer best known for his discovery of the Titanic in 1985.

The team traveled from Galveston to the Flower Garden Banks, the northernmost coral reef on the United States continental shelf, aboard the SSV Carolyn Chouest with the U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered research submarine in tow. It was the first expedition Ballard led from shore.

Using a shipboard television studio and satellite technology, the team transmitted live video feed to groups of scientists all over the country. They also produced five live informational broadcasts each day.

According to the mission logs, the short expedition was plagued by bad weather and technical difficulties that limited use of Ballard's underwater research capsule, Argus. When it finally entered the water, the remotely operated vehicle transmitted high-definition pictures of the ancient shoreline on the last day of the trip.

While Argus was out of commission earlier in the week, the team relied on images from the submarine. Two scientists at a time stretched out in the bottom of the 145-foot vessel and peered out of view ports to observe the ocean floor.

The submarine's unique construction — with wheels for driving along the seabed — allowed the scientists to scrutinize the reef from a depth of 40 feet.

The discovery of an active mud volcano created quite a stir, wrote submarine captain Rick Panlilio in a March 6 log entry.

"We imaged it first with our side scanning sonar and found a large crater about 50 yards across on the summit," he wrote. "The summit was about 160 feet up from the surrounding plane. On the sonar images, we could see a wisp of something trailing off the top of the mound.

"We thrusted the submarine down on top of the hill and crept toward the center and, 'Eureka!' we found that the dormant volcano was highly active, with a constant jet of gas, brine and silt being ejected from a briny mud pool inside the crater. The rocky structure inside the crater was jagged and run through with small canyons where dense brine seeped out."

The submarine and its crew sailed back to Galveston on Saturday. The scientists returned to their labs, but the Navy crew will remain in port until they leave for their next expedition Thursday.

During their layover, Lt. James Krohne said the sailors would be taking a trip to the Johnson Space Center to compare notes with the astronauts.


_____

__________________________________________________________________________________

Newswise
March 05, 2007

Which navy commissioned the boat that sunk off the coast of Acre 200 years ago, which battles was it involved in and how did it end up at the bottom of the sea? The recent findings of marine archaeologists at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies of the University of Haifa may provide the answers to these questions.

The ship, which sunk off the coast of Acre during a battle between Napoleon, the British navy and possibly the defenders of Acre, 200 years ago, is under excavation and its finds are beginning to shed light on Napoleon's attempt to conquer the Holy Land.

Recent marine excavations found cannon balls, canisters of gun powder and other items that will help give evidence as to the ship's journey and answer the questions facing marine archaeologists. It is not clear if the boat was involved in battles in 1799 or 1840, if it was a French or British boat or even if the boat sunk or was sunk. "This is the only shipwreck excavated from the period of the French blockade of Acre and it can teach us a lot about the naval battles of that period," explained Dr. Ya'acov Kahanov from the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies and the Department Of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa.

This large ship, 30 meters long and 9 meters wide, was discovered off the Acre coast in 1966, but systematic excavations have only just begun under the auspices of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies of the University of Haifa in cooperation with the Nautical Archaeology Society of Great Britain and with the help of the Nautical College for Naval Officers in Acre. The fact that cannon balls, gun powder canisters, wineskins and metal buckles were found, attest to the fact that this ship was part of a naval fleet. The question of which battle it was involved in has yet to be answered, but the archaeologists do have some theories.

It seems that the story of this boat begins over 200 years ago. Researchers found a map in a British archive, drawn in 1799 by a British soldier, of the British formation off the coast of Acre, facing a blockade of Napoleon's ships. The map includes a symbol of a sunken ship, at exactly the spot where this ship was found. This map is the source of the theory that this ship was involved in the battles of 1799. In addition, one of the cannon balls was found wedged into the keel of the boat, exactly at the bottom. The location and the unique angle at which the cannon ball is positioned, has led researchers to believe that it was this cannon ball that sank the ship.

"One of the theories is that this is a "barricade ship" - a ship that the British purposely sunk at the entrance of the port in order to block smaller French ships from entering it. The leather buckles, gun power canisters and the rest of the finds need to be analyzed to verify how the ship ended up at the bottom of the sea. Once we understand these questions, we will be able to understand more about battle tactics of that period, "said Dr. Kahanov.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

__________________________________________________________________________________

March 04, 2007


RALEIGH, N.C. — A shipwreck off the North Carolina coast believed to be that of notorious pirate Blackbeard could be fully excavated in three years, officials working on the project said.

"That's really our target," Steve Claggett, the state archaeologist, said Friday while discussing 10 years of research that has been conducted since the shipwreck was found just off Atlantic Beach.

The ship ran aground in 1718, and some researchers believe it was a French slave ship Blackbeard captured in 1717 and renamed Queen Anne's Revenge.

Several officials said historical data and coral-covered artifacts recovered from the site — including 25 cannons, which experts said was an uncommonly large number to find on a ship in the region in the early 18th century — remove any doubt the wreckage belonged to Blackbeard.

Three university professors, including two from East Carolina University, have challenged the findings. But officials working on the excavation said Friday that the more they find, the stronger their case becomes.

"Historians have really looked at it thoroughly and don't feel that there's any possibility anything else is in there that was not recorded," said Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the Queen Anne's Revenge Project. "And the artifacts continue to support it."

Wilde-Ramsing said a coin weight recovered last fall bearing a likeness of Britain's Queen Anne and a King George cup, both dated before the shipwreck, further bolster their position.

So far, about 15 percent of the shipwreck has been recovered including jewelry, dishes and thousands of other artifacts. The items are being preserved and studied at a lab at East Carolina University, and eventually more will become available for the public to view, Claggett said.

Nearly 2 million people have viewed shipwreck artifacts since 1998, including at a permanent exhibit at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort and at a maritime museum in Paris, project officials said.

Researchers shared some of their findings Friday at the North Carolina Museum of History. They said studying the artifacts will provide insight into the era's naval technology, slave trade and pirate life.

Blackbeard, whose real name was widely believed to be Edward Teach or Edward Thatch, settled in Bath and received a governor's pardon. Some experts believe he grew bored with land life and returned to piracy.

He was killed by volunteers from the Royal Navy in November 1718 — five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne's Revenge sank.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com

March 01, 2007


GALVESTON, Texas - Famed undersea explorer Robert Ballard is leading a team of scientists heading into the Gulf of Mexico for a weeklong examination of Texas' ancient shoreline to see if anybody may have lived there.

Ballard, whose discoveries include the wrecks of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck, is among dozens of geologists, biologists and marine archaeologists exploring the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, a protected area of underwater salt domes that are topped with reefs that host brightly colored sponges, plants and other marine life.

But 15,000 or more years ago, with much of North America locked in the last Ice Age, water levels of the Gulf of Mexico were 200 feet lower, meaning the area was the Texas shoreline some 100 miles south of where it is now.

The estimated $300,000 project will examine what scientists believe are those ancient shorelines. The team will leave from Galveston on Friday.

"Certainly a major part is our quest for evidence of human habitation in the Flower Garden regions during the last Ice Age," Ballard said Thursday.

For Ballard, the deep-sea expedition will be the first in more than 100 over a 40-year career where he's not actually on or under the water. Instead, he'll be at a command center in Mystic, Conn., one of six centers around the country where scientists will be monitoring the mission in real time with high-definition television images sent over satellite and Internet links.

"It's going to be an interesting experience - not at sea." he said.

It's also a test run for explorations involving a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship joining the fleet next year. Missions from that ship, and other research vessels, will be done more like this one with scientists in onshore locations, Ballard said.

"This is really a groundbreaking experiment," he said. "More importantly, now I can go on many many expeditions."

Dwight Coleman, a University of Rhode Island oceanographer and the mission's chief scientist, said researchers are in general agreement the oldest human habitation in North America is about 12,000 years ago. A discovery earlier than that would be historic.

"We don't know if people were really living on the shelf," he said of the Gulf area they'll be exploring. "But we're very interested. We don't know if we're going to find any remains or archaeological material."

Fishermen long have been pulling up mammoth or mastodon bones, arrowheads and other evidence of prehistoric life off the North American coasts, but firm evidence to tie it together has been evasive.

"We're going to use technology to take the water out, peel it away," said David Robinson, one of the mission archaeologists. "We might get lucky."

Ballard said one thing to look for would be evidence of salt formations tapped and mined by people.

"If you can imagine 20,000 years ago, salt would have been an important commodity," he said. "If we find something significant, we'll be back in spades with more sophisticated equipment."

Teams involved in the project include NOAA, the agency that manages the sanctuary; Ballard's Immersion Presents, a science education program for children in grades 5-8, along with his Institute of Exploration, which develops deep sea research vehicles; the University of Rhode Island, where Ballard is a professor of oceanography; and the U.S. Navy.

They'll be using two ships, a nuclear-powered research submarine, a remotely operated underwater vehicle and scuba divers in the search.

The reefs are in waters ranging from 55 to 160 feet, but researchers are most interested in the deeper areas difficult for scuba divers to reach and plan to use the Navy research submarine and remote-controlled vehicle.

Other command centers are at NOAA headquarters in Silver Springs, Md.; Seattle; the University of Rhode Island; University of New Hampshire; and Smithfield High School in Smithfield, R.I.

Ballard plans several television programs daily during the weeklong mission that will be broadcast to schools and museums and aquariums around the nation.


____
www.dofundodomar.blogspot.com