Davy Jones’s lock-up

Underwater robots can help study the world’s shipwrecks, a trove of information about the past, more easily and cheaply

A SHIPWRECK is a catastrophe for those involved, but for historians and archaeologists of future generations it is an opportunity. Wrecks offer glimpses not only of the nautical technology of the past but also of its economy, trade, culture and, sometimes, its warfare. Until recently, though, most of the 3m ships estimated to be lying on the seabed have been out of reach. Underwater archaeology has mainly been the preserve of scuba divers. That has limited the endeavour to waters less than 50 metres deep, excluding 98% of the sea floor from inspection. Even allowing for the tendency of trading vessels to be coasters rather than ocean-going ships, that limits the number of wrecks available for discovery and examination.

Moreover, shallow-water shipwrecks are often damaged. Storms reach down to affect them. Seaweeds and corals, which need light to grow, colonise them. Freelance divers, seeking salvage rather than knowledge, despoil them. Archaeologists do sometimes team up with people who have access to miniature submarines (some manned, some unmanned) to explore deeper waters. But such expeditions are expensive—a million dollars a pop is not untypical—and archaeology is not a well-resourced profession. Often, these expeditions are privately financed, speculative ventures which amount to little more than treasure-hunting.

Modern robotics, however, is changing this. A new generation of cheap, free-swimming, automatic underwater vehicles (AUVs) is being developed. Past minisubs have needed a lot of backup and, if unmanned, have had to be guided by signals passing down tethers. Their mother-ships have thus had to be fitted out specially, which is one reason for the expense. An AUV, by contrast, can be dropped into the ocean and left to fend for itself. A wider range of vessels can thus support it.

One of the leading practitioners of the AUV approach to marine archaeology is Brendan Foley, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in Massachusetts. Having cut his teeth over the past few years on a vessel wrecked in the Aegean in the 4th century BC, he now proposes to make the process truly systematic and scientific. As he outlined at a meeting held in Alexandria, on December 15th, he hopes to survey a promising area of seabed off the coast of Egypt, with a view to locating and exploring all the wrecks therein.

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Tags: Ocean, Oceanography, Scuba diving, seabed, ship wreck, Shipwreck, treasure hunt, underwater archeology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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