{"id":1234,"date":"2015-07-20T09:47:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T13:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=575"},"modified":"2020-11-30T13:59:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T18:59:39","slug":"centuries-old-shipwreck-discovered-off-nc-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/2015\/07\/centuries-old-shipwreck-discovered-off-nc-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"The Past Uncovered"},"content":{"rendered":"
Scanning sonar from a scientific expedition has revealed the remains of a previously unknown shipwreck more than a mile deep off the North Carolina coast. Artifacts on the wreck indicate it might date to the American Revolution.<\/p>\n
Marine scientists from North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of Oregon discovered the wreck on July 12 during a research expedition aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) research ship Atlantis.<\/p>\n
They spotted the wreck while using WHOI\u2019s robotic autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry and the manned submersible Alvin. The team had been searching for a mooring that was deployed on a previous research trip in the area in 2012.<\/p>\n Among the artifacts discovered amid the shipwreck\u2019s broken remains are an iron chain, a pile of wooden ship timbers, red bricks (possibly from the ship cook\u2019s hearth), glass bottles, an unglazed pottery jug, a metal compass, and another navigational instrument that might be an octant or sextant.<\/p>\n The wreck appears to date back to the late 18th or early 19th century, a time when a young United States was expanding its trade with the rest of the world by sea.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an exciting find, and a vivid reminder that even with major advances in our ability to access and explore the ocean, the deep sea holds its secrets close,\u201d said expedition leader Cindy Van Dover, director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory.<\/p>\n \u201cI have led four previous expeditions to this site, each aided by submersible research technology to explore the sea floor \u2014 including a 2012 expedition where we used Sentry to saturate adjacent areas with sonar and photo images,\u201d Van Dover said. \u201cIt\u2019s ironic to think we were exploring within 100 meters of the wreck site without an inkling it was there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis discovery underscores that new technologies we\u2019re developing to explore the deep-sea floor yield not only vital information about the oceans, but also about our history,\u201d said David Eggleston, director of the Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) at NC State and one of the principal investigators of the science project.<\/p>\n<\/a>