Oceans Odyssey 3

In 1990 Seahawk Deep Ocean Technology of Tampa, Florida, commenced the world’s first robotic archaeological excavation of a deep-sea shipwreck south of the Tortugas Islands in the Straits of Florida. At a depth of 405 meters, 16,903 artefacts were recovered using a Remotely-Operated Vehicle. The wreck is interpreted as the Buen Jesús y Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a small Portuguese-built and Spanish-operated merchant vessel from the 1622 Tierra Firme fleet returning to Seville from Venezuela’s Pearl Coast when lost in a hurricane. Oceans Odyssey 3 introduces the shipwreck and its artefact collection – today owned and curated by Odyssey Marine Exploration – ranging from gold bars to silver coins, pearls, ceramics, beads, glass wares, astrolabes, tortoiseshell, animal bones and seeds. The Tortugas shipwreck reflects the daily life of trade with the Americas at the end of the Golden Age of Spain and presents the capabilities of deep-sea robotics as tools for precision archaeological excavation.

Oceans Odyssey 2 presents the results of the discovery and archaeological survey of ten deep-water wrecks by Odyssey Marine Exploration. In the Western Approaches and western English Channel, a mid-17th century armed merchantman, the guns of Admiral Balchin's Victory (1744), the mid-18th century French privateer La Marquise de Tourny and six German U-boats lost at the end of World War II are examined in depth. From the Atlantic coast of the United States, the Jacksonville 'Blue China' wreck's British ceramics, tobacco pipes and American glass wares bring to life the story of a remarkable East Coast schooner lost in the mid-19th century. These unique sites expand the boundaries of human knowledge, highlighting the great promise of deep-sea wrecks, the technology needed to explore them and the threats from nature and man that these wonders face. Challenges to managing underwater cultural heritage are also discussed, along with proposed solutions for curating and storing collections.

"A summary by famed marine biologist Sylvia Earle of the latest insights about the present state of the ocean and a look at how its future and that of humankind are inextricably bound"--

In ten papers Odyssey Marine Exploration presents the technology, methodology and archaeological results from four deep-sea shipwrecks and one major survey conducted between 2003 and 2008. The sites lie beyond territorial waters in depths of up to 820 metres off southeastern America and in the Straits of Gibraltar and the English Channel. Exclusively recorded using robotic technology in the form of a Remotely-Operated Vehicle, the wrecks range from the major Royal Navy warships HMS Sussex (1694) and the unique, 100-gun, first-rate HMS Victory (1744)to the steamship SS Republic (1865) and a mid-19th century merchant vessel with a cargo of British porcelain. Their study reveals that the future of deep-sea wreck research has arrived, but also that many sites are at severe risk from destruction from the offshore fishing industry.

In ten papers Odyssey Marine Exploration presents the technology, methodology and archaeological results from four deep-sea shipwrecks and one major survey conducted between 2003 and 2008. The sites lie beyond territorial waters in depths of up to 820 metres off southeastern America and in the Straits of Gibraltar and the English Channel. Exclusively recorded using robotic technology in the form of a Remotely-Operated Vehicle, the wrecks range from the major Royal Navy warships HMS Sussex (1694) and the unique, 100-gun, first-rate HMS Victory (1744)to the steamship SS Republic (1865) and a mid-19th century merchant vessel with a cargo of British porcelain. Their study reveals that the future of deep-sea wreck research has arrived, but also that many sites are at severe risk from destruction from the offshore fishing industry.

For 250 years encrusted wonders have been turning up in fishermen's nets: everything imaginable from prehistoric animal bones to priceless Roman statues. Fishing trawlers annually sweep an area equivalent in size to half the world's continental shelves. Everything in the wake of these bulldozers of the deep is battered. A devastating trail of smashed shipwrecks runs from the North Sea to Malaysia. The profound threat of the global fishing industry remains a black hole in marine archaeology, poorly understood and unmanaged. Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage is the first global analysis of the threat of bottom fishing to underwater cultural heritage, examining the diversity, scale and implications on endangered finds and sites. Throughout, the key questions of whether it is too late to save the planet's three million wrecks and how sustainable management is achievable are debated.