spectively. One hundred anct tour wooa species rrom .

ranama
were used, along with nine high-resistance woods from other parts
of the world, plus two woods of known low resistance (Douglas
fir and southern yellow pine) for controls.
Each wood was cut to a standard si7.e ( 1.5 X 1.5 X 10 inches)
and exposed to the sea just below the low-tide range. The woods
were inspected at intervals of seven, fourteen, thirty-eight, and
ninety months ( up to seven and a half years), and some of the
findings were surprising. Mangrove wood, which is hard, dense,
and straight-grained, and grows in salt water, had been thought by
many people to be resistant to the depredations of marine borers.
But after fourteen months' exposure in the Pacific, all five species
of mangrove tried were heavily damaged. Resistance to teredos
seemed to be related to silica content, and woods with more than
half a per cent of silica survived best. The density of the wood did
not seem to be an important factor.
Pine seems to have particularly low resistance to borers, and
even redwood, which survives well on land because it is toxic to
many insects, is not particularly good. After fourteen months in
the ocean, 44 per cent of the woods were destroyed, and before
the ninety months were up, 96 per cent of the woods had been
heavily damaged by one or more species of borer.
The only wood that resisted attacks of all three groups of
borers was Dalbergia retusa, a heavy, hard, very oily wood. Un-
fortunately, because of the irregular shape of the tree, this wood
does not make good timber, but the chemical constituents (mainly
the oils) have been synthetically duplicated for use as a preserva-
tive.
These experiments led to a deeper look, and in 1967-68, after a
one-year stay on the bottom at 1,350 meters in the Tongue of the
Ocean, Bahamas, another navy test array was retrieved. This site
has been described as a model ocean. The bottom is flat , the
temperature is 4.6 ° C, the salinity thirty-five parts per thousand,
and the dissolved oxygen 5.2 parts per million.
This time, two sets of five untreated wood panels ( each panel
0.6 X 3.0X 12 inches) consisting of pine, fir, cypress, oak~ and red-
wood were tested. All panels were attacked by Xylophaga, with
the pine being damaged most and the other woods somewhat less
penetrated in the order given. The object was to determine the
amount of borer activity in deep water, and the answer was that
redwood, the best of the lot, had over twenty-five borer openings
per square inch. Pine had as many as eighty.
Similar tests were then run by James Muraoka of the Naval
Civil Engineering Laboratory at Port Hueneme, California, in the
Pacific at a depth of 1,920 meters from August 1968 to February
1969, and some additional findings were made. The wood panels
were about the same size as before, but this time some were
treated with preservatives, some were buried in the bottom, and
some were suspended well above the bottom. Natural rope fibers
of cotton and manila were also tested.
When recovered, after six months on the bottom, there was a
heavy slime deposit on the ropes. The fibers of the half-inch-
diameter cotton rope showed considerable decay due to bacterial
activity but were not damaged by the wood borers. The same size
manila line was severely damaged, both by the micro-organisms
and the borers, and many of the fibers were severed by deep pene-
tration. Both lines had lost about half their strength.
The untreated wood panels, of pine, fir, ash, maple, cedar, oak,
balsa, and redwood, were damaged by the boring clam Xylophaga
depending on their position relative to the bottom. Those close to
the bottom had about four hundred borers per square inch, except
pine, which had nearly twice that amount. However, a piece of fir
buried in the mud had no borers, and all varieties that were sus-
pended six feet above the bottom bad only one to three per square
inch. Woods treated with creosote, 1 per cent tri-butylin oxide, or
chromated copper arsenate had no borers.
Thus, the maximum attack by boring clams seems to come in
the first meter above the mud line. This gives one a mental picture
of an old wooden wreck sitting upright on the bottom being ringed
and eaten in a narrow band just above the mud. When the last ribs
get very thin, the upper part of the hull drops down to the mud
surface and the next few feet are eaten. And so on. A time-lapse
movie would show the wreck dissolving downward as though
disappearing into the bottom. In reality, it drifts away as fecal dust
from the borers.
In early 1971, the research submarine Deep Quest was examin-
ing the sea bottom off San Diego, California, at a depth of eleven
hundred meters when it suddenly and accidentally came upon a
navy aircraft, its aluminum surfaces shining brightly. The plane
proved to be an F6F that had been lost twenty-six years before. It
was later salvaged, and this afforded a good opportunity to find
out what kind of sea life would attach to clean alwninum in a
quarter century. Scallops averaging about thirty-eight millimeters
across were the dominant form and were found all over the
aircraft. Pink and orange sea anemones, some a hundred and fifty
millimeters across, were attached under the wing. Calcareous
tubes up to a hundred millimeters long, built by tube worms, were
attached to the plastic windows. Hydroids, barnacles, brachi-
opods, gastropod egg cases, and a gorgonian sea whip were at-
tached to various parts, and inside the aircraft there were spider
crabs, shrimps, clams, sea urchins, and snails.
The most important find from the point of view of the ship ar-
chaeologist was the condition of a hardwood headrest in the cock-
pit; it had been completely riddled by that old enemy of wooden
ships, the molluscan wood borer Xylophaga.
Dr. Ruth Tum.e r of the Agassiz Museum at Harvard University,
who is an expert on these tiny, ravenous creatures, thinks that the
deepwater species of Xylophaga may have quite restricted ranges.
She thinks that the fact that boards a few meters above the bottom
are free of borers suggests that currents at that level prevent the
larvae from settling. Presumably, slower currents and a concen-
tration of larvae at or close to the bottom would permit the larvae
to attach themselves to the wood. Unfortunately almost nothing is
known of the behavior of the larvae or the length of their free-
swimming life.
Both teredos and Xylophaga attacked test boards fixed at ninety
meters below the surface off Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but,
significantly, no teredos were found in deeper tests in that area.
This probably means that teredos found in wood dredged from
great depths had entered the wood before it sank. If so, some old
ships actually carried down with them these seeds of their own de-
struction.
Dr. Turner also notes the possibility that an early heavy settle-
ment of filamentous bryozoans may prevent the attack of ship-
season, accidentally left a hammer behind. When they returned
the following year, they found the hammer handle had been exten-
sively attacked but the wreck timbers, several thousand years old,
were untouched.
It is an interesting question how the borers survive for such long
periods of time without a home or food. These creatures start with
an isolated piece of wood on the deep-sea floor and eat away at it
until they have destroyed their own home. The adults have no
place to go after they have consumed their own house, so presum-
ably they die or go into a state of suspended animation. The tiny
planktonic offspring they produce in great abundance can only
drift with the slow currents, during which time metamorphosis is
delayed. These larvae settle and become viable adults only when
chance encounter brio~ them into contact with a piece of wood.
No one knows how long they can survive in the planktonic form,
but it may be years. Presumably in a year of very slow drifting a
few of the countless thousands of offspring will find some wood
and go through the cycle again to perpetuate the species. As Dr.
Turner says, "Their high reproductive rate, high population den-
sity, rapid growth, early maturity, and utilization of a transient
habitat classify them as opportunistic species--probably the most
important species involved in decomposing woody plant material
in the deep sea."
It is possible the larvae can live for hundreds of years. In that
case they can afford to wait for the next piece of wood to come to
them. Eventually, with the larvae or perhaps quiescent adults
spread out over huge areas of sea floor, a piece of wood will fall
and the cycle will start again. It may be that there are already
borer larvae quietly waiting all over the sea bottom for wooden
ships to fall and feed them. The slowness of life processes and me-
tabolism in deep water thus are made to work to their advantage.
Another suggestion is that viable larvae near the sea surface
become attached to sedimentary particles of dust and are carried
downward by them, creating a continuing rain of incipient borers.
This could explain the ubiquity of larvae without requiring ve.ry
long periods of suspended animation. In any case, it is evident
that chance plays a substantial part in deciding whether deep
hulks will be attacked.
 Sometimes scientific evidence about the ocean bottom comes in
curious, unexpected ways. On Octob er 16, 1968, the research sub-
mersible Alvin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution sank
when a cable parted as it was being lowered into the water. Three
crewmen who had just board ed her barely got out the hatch and
swam clear. The location was in 1,540 meters of water 135 miles
from its home port of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Later the small
sub was photographed resting on the bottom by the U. S. Navy's
deep-search ship Mizar, and the photos showed that the hatch was
still open. On September 1, 1969, a year after it sank, the Alvin
was found; anoth er submarine attached a line, and the little sub
was brought to the surface again. When it was pumped out, the
crew's lunch was recovered; it consisted of two Therm os bottles
filled with bouillon and a plastic box containing sandwiches and
apples. From general appearance, taste, smell, consistency, and
preliminary bacteriological and biochemical assays, these foods
were exceedingly well preserved. But when they were moved to a
refrigerator at 3 ° C ( about the same temperature as the sea bot-
tom), the starchy and proteinaceous materials spoiled in a few
weeks.
This unexpected finding clearly was of significance, and Dr. H.
W. Jannasch and some associates at Woods Hole at once began
looking into the circumstances of preservation. The temperature in
the Alvin had been nearly freezing, and the pressure was 150 at-
mospheres. There was no evidence of reducing conditions or any
noticeable lack of dissolved oxygen in the water in either the hull
or the plastic container. There seemed to be nothing that could
have acted as an inadvertent preservative.
The bouillon had mixed with a little sea water when the plastic
top caved in under pressure, and the sandwiches (wrap ped in wax
paper ) were soggy, but apparently both were otherwise un-
changed. When pieces of bread were streaked on sea-water
agar, bacteria and molds grew profusely. In anoth er test, some of
the bread decayed in six weeks and the bologna spoiled in four
weeks at 3 ° C ( and in only five days at room tempe rature ).
The two apples had a pickled appearance but showed no signs
of decay. The soup, originally prepared from canned meat ex-
tract, was palatable, either hot or cold. In other words, the fresh-
fruit preservation equaled the best of careful storage at the sur-
f ace, and the other materials survived far better than they would
have in normal refrigeration.
Why? The implications, if these circumstances are generally true
on the deep-sea bottom, are very important. Can it be that
microbial action is brought to a standstill by high pressure or
some other factor? It had generally been thought that bacteria
would be very active at depth if ample energy and nutrients were
available. But most of the actual experiments had been made
under shallow-water, near-surface conditions because of the con-
siderable difficulties of handling cultures and making measure-
ments under high pressure. But now an accident had exposed
many fascinating new possibilities, and new experiments were
designed to probe the mysteries.
Sample bottles containing liquid media of several types and con-
centrations were installed in racks for inoculation with sea water
from various depths. With Alvin rebuilt and diving again, its
mechanical arms could be used to remove sample bottles from
racks, inoculate them, and do other chores related to the experi-
ments. Some of the racks were kept in the laboratory refrigerator
as controls; duplicate samples were suspended ten meters above
the bottom in water depths of five thousand meters for two to five
months. The experimenters labeled their test material with carbon
14 and then measured the amount of it that was converted to par-
ticulate carbon by microbial action.
The results under these controlled laboratory-like conditions
were much like the accidental ones. Bacteria at deep-sea pressure
converted only 0.15 per cent to 12.9 per cent as much as the same
bacteria at the same temperature in the laboratory control sam-
ples. Carbohydrates decomposed eighty-eight times more slowly in
the deep sea. These data support the opinion that there is a gen-
eral slowdown of life processes in deep water.
Later, these same Woods Hole scientists tried again with similar
but improved equipment. Alvin took to a depth of 1,830 meters
sterile samples that included solid materials (paper towels, balsa,
and beechwood), inoculated them, and left them there a year. The
results were similar; the inoculants converted the materials
17-125 times faster in the lab than the exactly equivalent speci-
mens on the sea bottom. However, similar wood samples on the
bottom in open, unprotected containers were attacked by marine
boring mollusks in the absence of visible microbial degradation.
Dr. J annasch and his associates have proved that "increased hy-
drostatic pressure may exert an effect on the cells, raising the
minimal growth temperature." That is, for the microbes under
pressure to grow and reproduce they require a higher tempera-
ture than 4° C. "In an environment of low temperature, an in-
creasing pressure will eliminate growth and biochemical activity
of bacterial types successively.'' Meaning that each kind of bacte-
ria may have its own minimal temperature related to pressure. As
the water gets deeper, microbes require higher temperatures to
reproduce.
One implication of this finding is that, in the deep, sea, organic
materials may last a very long time. It is conceivable that ancient
fruits or food products still exist at great depth.
Unfortunately most of the bottom of the deep Mediterranean ( a
thousand meters or more) is a relatively warm 13.5° C. This may
be about the optimum temperature for psychrophilic ( cold-lov-
ing) bacteria to grow in. This is the most common bacterial type
in deep water, and indirect evidence suggests that they can survive
very long periods of time without losing the capability of starting
to grow quickly as soon as the environmental conditions become
suitable. Since viable bacteria are found far removed from any
food source, this could be interprete.d as evidence that individuals
may live a great many years.
Fungi also attack and damage undersea wood, but their action
is quite different from that of the bacteria. Dr. Jan Kohlmeyer of
the North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences, writing about
deepwater wood samples, noted that ''wood panels exposed for 13
to 35 months at three Pacific and Atlantic locations at depths of
1,616 to 2,073 meters were attacked by cellulose-digesting fungi.
Degradation was limited to the outer layers of the wood and was
identical with the 'soft rot' decay caused by terrestrial, shallow
water, and marine shallow-water fungi." He saw no traces of
marine fungi in the seven wood samples submerged off Califomia
although all the wood surfaces were deteriorated by cellulolytic
bacteria. This is attributed to the low levels of dissolved oxygen
 Deepwater Search

dec ade were

Virt uall y all anc ient wre cks foun d unti l the pres ent
ges or cora ls
disc ove red acci den tally by dive rs sear chin g for spon
accidental
in wat er dep ths rare ly exce edin g fort y met ers. But now
ires a specific
finds are not goo d eno ugh ; the mod ern sear che r requ
nolo gy. The
stra tegy , a set of tactics, and the best of seagoing tech
ns and in the
cha nce s of finding a wreck on the broa d, mud dy plai
out a careful
rock y gap s of the dee p wou ld be muc h too slim with
ope rati ng plan .
g the mos t
Our stra tegy will be as follows: We will sear ch alon
of loss would
hea vily trav eled anc ient rout es whe re the incidence
dep ths of a
be grea test . The initi al sear che s will be in mod est
oms outside
hun dre d to five hun dred met ers on flat, mud dy bott
nd to grea ter
the twelve-mile limit. Eve ntua lly the wor k will exte
s with local
dep ths, to rock y area s, and to co-o pera tive ven ture
gov ernm ents insi de the twelve-mile limit.
it can be
The tact ics will be to select an area of such size
ise naviga-
sear che d in a reas ona ble leng th of time, establish a prec
and test the
tion syst em, rech eck the dep ths sho wn on the cha rts,
the sear ch
bott om cha ract eris tics so that we hav e confidence that
sear ch begins,
met hod s to be used will function prop erly . Onc e the
k, with the
it will be mos t efficient if it con tinu es arou nd the cloc
men working four hours on, eight hours off. The searchers will
note the precise position of any conta cts made with possible
wrecks so that the ship can return to exami ne these in detail later
on. How much later that will be depen ds on the numb er of con-
tacts made and the evaluation of the evidence by the scientists in
the contro l room. Early in the search, one or two conta cts may be
looke d at with television to determine if they are natura l features,
recent ships, or some other kind of anomalies. This inform ation
will guide later decisions about what kinds of objec ts are most
likely to be the ones sought.
When the searcher does not know for certai n that a target
(wrec k) exists, it is not necessary to search every squar e meter of
the bottom. If a "holiday," or space between search lanes, is left,
it is not as impor tant as it would be if one were searching for a
ship known to be lost in the area. Rathe r, the idea is to cover as
much territo ry as possible and thus optimize the likelih ood of en-
countering an ancient wreck. The chances are as good one place
as anoth er within the area selected.
When the best of seagoing technology is specifically applied to
searching, it includes three main kinds of tools: a prope r ship, a
precise navigation system, and a mean s of detecting evidence of
wrecks on the. sea bottom.
Most often, the ship used for searching will be the same one
used for inspection and salvage. Various kinds of small ships from
twenty to forty meters in length might be used for searching, but
proba bly the best type for all aspects of mode rate-d epth search ,
inspection, and salvage work will be a small offsho re supply boat.
This kind of vessel is described in the next chapt er; its use is
presumed here.
The equipments used for navigation and for wreck detect ion are
of equal impor tance in a search system. Neith er is of much value
witho ut the other. First we will consid er precise navig ation tech-
niques. The searching ship must know exactly where it is at all
times. "Exac tly" in searching is usually taken to mean the ability
to return to within fifty meter s of a point previously established.
This is about one ship length, and it insures that only a small
amou nt of repea t searching must be done to find a specific small
objec t on the bottom . Ships crossing the ocean ordina rily know
 their position on the earth's surface within about a mile. In
searching, it is usually not necessary to know the ship's position
on the globe but it is very important to know its exact location rel-.
ative to a fixed point on the bottom or to an arbitrary searching
grid so that any contacts made by the wreck-detection equipment
can be found again.
For shallow-water, near-shore operations in daylight, a simple
combination of buoys and range markers ashore, transits and
radios, or sextants may be adequate. But offshore, deepwater
search and recovery with an expensive ship and survey party
means around-the-clock operations, often in rough weather. For
this, one of several varieties of electronic systems must be
employed. Sometimes shore stations several hundred miles away
can be used to obtain the ship's position with an accuracy of a few
hundred meters. However, in searching it is usually preferable to
combine such remote position indication with a specialized local
positioning scheme involving special buoys or bottom markers.
The principal long-range navigation systems are loran and
omega. They are operated by governments for general naviga-
tional use, but they are not sufficiently accurate to be of much
assistance to an archaeological search in the Mediterranean or
Black Sea. An alternative is to establish pairs of privately operated
stations on shores as near as possible to the area to be searched.
Intermediate-range (over-the-horizon) systems such as Raydist,
shoran, and Decca can give a ship's position more closely, but
they are expensive and have certain operating problems that
include a shift in the ship's apparent position as the height of the
ionosphere changes at sunrise and sunset. All these navigational
systems require pairs of shore stations whose distance from each
other is precisely known. Then, by phase-matching radio waves
and by triangulation, the ship's position at the third corner of the
triangle can be worked out.
Within sight of land, a distance that is generally within about
thirty miles but depends both on the height of the land and the
elevation of the observer or aerial above the sea, line-of-sight elec-
tronics is preferred. Various systems such as Decca Trisponder,
Cubic Autotape, and Tellurometer can be used to obtain the ship's
position within a few meters. Generally, these require one to set
 their position on the earth's surface within about a mile. In
searching, it is usually not necessary to know the ship's position
on the globe but it is very important to know its exact location rel-.
ative to a fixed point on the bottom or to an arbitrary searching
grid so that any contacts made by the wreck-detection equipment
can be found again.
For shallow-water, near-shore operations in daylight, a simple
combination of buoys and range markers ashore, transits and
radios, or sextants may be adequate. But offshore, deepwater
search and recovery with an expensive ship and survey party
means around-the-clock operations, often in rough weather. For
this, one of several varieties of electronic systems must be
employed. Sometimes shore stations several hundred miles away
can be used to obtain the ship's position with an accuracy of a few
hundred meters. However, in searching it is usually preferable to
combine such remote position indication with a specialized local
positioning scheme involving special buoys or bottom markers.
The principal long-range navigation systems are loran and
omega. They are operated by governments for general naviga-
tional use, but they are not sufficiently accurate to be of much
assistance to an archaeological search in the Mediterranean or
Black Sea. An alternative is to establish pairs of privately operated
stations on shores as near as possible to the area to be searched.
Intermediate-range (over-the-horizon) systems such as Raydist,
shoran, and Decca can give a ship's position more closely, but
they are expensive and have certain operating problems that
include a shift in the ship's apparent position as the height of the
ionosphere changes at sunrise and sunset. All these navigational
systems require pairs of shore stations whose distance from each
other is precisely known. Then, by phase-matching radio waves
and by triangulation, the ship's position at the third corner of the
triangle can be worked out.
Within sight of land, a distance that is generally within about
thirty miles but depends both on the height of the land and the
elevation of the observer or aerial above the sea, line-of-sight elec-
tronics is preferred. Various systems such as Decca Trisponder,
Cubic Autotape, and Tellurometer can be used to obtain the ship's
position within a few meters. Generally, these require one to set
up radio transp onder s at know n positions ashor e and to recor d
and plot the range to each.
Beyond the line-of-sight range, an entirely local system that
relates the ship,s position to the sea floor directly ( rather than to
known points ashor e) gives the most accur ate and useful naviga-
tional data. One may not know the ship's exact position on the
face of the earth but it is known precisely relativ e to the search
area. This class of methods makes use of either deep, taut-m oored
buoys whose surface floats are marke d with flags, lights, and radar
transponders, or sonar transp onder s moun ted on the buoys or on
the sea floor. The buoys or transp onder s are place d in a triang ular
patter n of appro priate size, and a precise fix can be obtain ed over
many squar e miles. One advan tage of a local system is that no
shore stations are required, so that it can be instal led even if there
is no communication with the governments of the neare st coun-
tries.
In the mid 1960s, my comp any, Ocean Science and Engi-
neering, Inc., was engaged in searching for diamo nds benea th the
sea off the coast of South West Africa . That coast is very rugged,
totally uninhabited, and swept by huge break ers that preve nt any
operations across the beach. In nearly a thous and miles of coast ,
there are only three harbo rs.
It was essential that the survey ship's positi on be know n
precisely at all times, so the following metho d was used. We in-
stalled radar transp onder s on high points at about five-mile inter-
vals along the coast. This required a substa ntial surveying effort
because there are no roads in this waterless, trackl ess section of
the N amib Desert, where coasta l sand dunes rise two hundr ed
meters from the sea and jagged, wind-swept rocks look like they
should be inhab ited by dinosaurs. So we got about in four-wheel-
drive Land- Rover s and helicopters, leapfrogging the surve y sta-
tions from rock to rock and from dune to dune.
The surveyors used theodolites to tum angles between point s
several miles apart that could be seen throug h the rising heat
waves only when they were marke d by the flash of the sun on an
aimed mirror. Distance between the points was measu red by the
Tellurometer, a sort of electronic tape measure. As the line of
transp onder s march ed slowly up the coast, the variou s shore -party
units and the ship were in const ant radio comm unica tion to make
sure the ship was properly identifying the various transponders
and that no one disappeared in the desert along the Skeleton
Coast.
The radar transponders we set out were small, self-powered
units that would detect the ship's radar signal and repeat it back.
These showed on the ship's radarscope as very bright dots that
were easily identifiable. Electronically controlled range rings on
the scope were then adjusted to be just tangent to a bright dot.
These had been calibrated by Alpine Geophysical Corp. so that
the distance between the ship and the transponder could be read
directly in meters. Since the locations of the points ashore were
known precisely, fixes on pairs of transponders at two-minute in-
tervals exactly fixed the ship's position. Successive positions gave
the ship's track at specific times, and these were noted on the
geophysical record. Finally the information was fed directly from
the range rings to lead screws attached to plotting arms. When the
arms were set up on an accurate chart of the coast, the ship's posi-
tion was plotted automatically.
A variation on this scheme that can be used in deep water far at
sea is to install radar transponders on the surface floats of deep-
moored buoys that are set out in the search area. The taut-moored
buoy for very deep water was invented by the author in 1950 as a
means of instrumenting the first large thermonuclear explosions at
Eniwetok Atoll.. On that occasion, it was necessary to measure the
air shock wave and the water waves created by the explosions well
out at sea in the open Pacific. This meant the creation of a steady,
unmoving platform below the effects of the trade-wind seas. My
solution was to use an underwater buoy whose excess buoyancy
pulled upward very hard against a slender steel wire connected to
a heavy clump anchor on the sea bottom. The buoy could sway
slightly but could not describe the large circles that are charac-
teristic of surface buoys or anchored ships. The taut-moored buoy
that held the sensors was about fifty meters below the surface; to
it, a surface-marker float that supported recorders and instruments
was attached. The latter did move about within the limits of its
short tether, but still it was a far better position reference than one
could get from any ordinary electronic navigation system.
Much later, during the first Mohole drilling, in a water depth of
four thousand meters, I used this taut-moored buoy system to
mark the drilling ship's position. Sonar transponders were
mounted on the subsurface buoy and radar reflectors on the sur-
face floats. We estimated that the ship held position within a circle
of eighty meters diameter for nearly a month in spite of substan-
tial winds, currents, and a state-five sea ( ten-to-fifteen-foot
waves).
A few years ago, Ocean Science and Engineering, Inc., searched
for the wreck of a Boeing 727 airliner that went down in three
hundred and thirty meters of water off Los Angeles. Radars at the
airport had tracked the aircraft until it disappeared below the ho-
rizon, so the position of the wreck was known within a few miles.
Since it was evident that the plane struck the water while moving
at at least two hundred and fifty knots, we knew there would be a
lot of pieces spread around, but we were not sure what sizes they
would be or whether they would have buried in the soft mud bot-
tom. The search for the main pieces would be made with a side-
looking sonar, but the prime requirement was for a convenient
and accurate navigation system.
The distance from the shore to the search area was about ten
miles, which is a little too far for precise work with a sextant or
shore-based transits, so we decided against those methods. Then
we considered installing taut-moored marker buoys in the search
area, but maintaining them in a much-traveled waterway would
have reduced searching time. Finally, we selected the Cubic Auto-
tape, a line-of-sight system that measures distance precisely. A
pair of stations are established on shore that, in effect, reflect back
radio signals from the ship. The round-trip time of the signal is
reduced to distance and the results are very accurate, usually
within four meters. In the course of that search, we repeatedly
used the A utotape signals to return exactly to specific spots where
pieces of wreckage had been found.
Another kind of deepwater navigation system utilizes sonar
transponders. In the same way that radar transponders send back
a radio wave, the sonar transponders respond to a triggering signal
of underwater sound by sending back an enhanced signal. In this
case the transponder is placed on the sea floor, where it listens for
a specific frequency of underw ater sound. When it hears the
proper "ping, " it pings back.
By measuring the travel time of the sound in water, which
moves slowly compa red to radio waves but can still be measu red
accurately, it is possible to tell the exact distance of the
transpo nder from the ship. When two or more are set on the bot-
tom, the ship's position relative to them can easily be calculated.
There are several advantages to this kind of system. First, the ac-
curacy is such that the ship can return to within a few meters of a
previously located point. Second, once the transp onders are in
place, then all the distance calculations and the positio n plotting
are done on the ship, where they are under the direct contro l of
the expedition leader. Third, there is no chance that a distant
shore station will suddenly stop transmitting or that a storm, ei-
ther in the ionosphere or on the ocean, will knock out the naviga-
tion capability. If one places three such transp onders in a triangle
about three miles on a side, it is possible to naviga te a ship
precisely over an area of thirty square miles.
In deepwater search methods in which sensors are towed on the
end of a long cable, the cable forms an S-shap ed curve that
depends on the ship's speed, the length and drag of the cable, and
other factors. This means the sensors trail far behind and do not
immediately follow when the ship changes course ; determ ining the
ship's position relative to the sensors can be a compl icated
problem. The metho d used by Dr. Fred Speiss, Dr. John Mudie,
and their associates at the Marine Physical Labor atory of the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography makes use of a triangle of
transponders to keep track of the position of FISH. This deep-
towed submersible instrument platform was built to search for
large lost military objects at depths to five thousa nd meters. FISH,
towed a short distance above the bottom at the end of the cable,
queries each of the transpo nders in turn and relays the data to the
ship. The ship uses a similar system to obtain the range and direc-
tion of FISH. Finally the ship fixes its own position on the face of
the earth by means of a satellite navigation system. All the infor-
mation, fed into a shipboard computer, constantly update s the
position of FISH relative to everything else, including objects
found on the bottom. This method is good for the needs it serves
but is more complicated and expensive than is necessary for a
moderate-depth search for an ancient ship. With this navigation
method and using side-looking sonar followed by strobe p~o-
tography, the pieces of five ammunition ships that had been delib-
erately blown up were found and photographed off the Wash-
ington eoast in twenty-six hundred meters of water.
Another system for deepwater searching and bottom pho-
tography has been used with excellent results. The chief scientist
on the Atlantic version is C. L. "Bucky,, Buchanan of the Naval
Research Laboratory, who lowers his "sled" on a cable from a
ship named Mizar. As with FISH, the sensing instruments on this
sled system include a side-looking sonar that detects lumps on the
bottom, a magnetometer to sense steel wrecks, and a camera with
a super strobe light that illuminates an area of bottom as much as
a hundred feet in diameter. As the instruments are towed along at
the end of a very long cable, their height above the bottom is
adjusted by changing the speed of the ship and the length of the
cable.
With this equipment, the Mizar system found the lost nuclear
submarine Scorpion in over five thousand meters of water off the
Azores and photographed the wreckage. Later, when the Briggs,
an old ship loaded with poison gas, was scuttled north of the
Bahamas in fifty-five hundred meters, it was photographed resting
upright on the bottom amid a muddy trench it had squished out as
it hit. By "flying" his cameras repeatedly back and forth,
Buchanan and his associates were able to get enough photos
( including some that revealed the ship's insides beneath open
hatches) to make a mosaic of the ship and show that no damage
to ship or cargo had occurred during the fall or the impact.
The wire-towed search systems work very well as long as they
are moving. If they stop, the instruments crash into the bottom.
They can find wreckage with sonar and photograph it, but they do
not get "real-time" images-that is, pictures to look at during the
sear~h; aft~r the sensors are retrieved, the photos are developed
for 1nspectton several hours later. The ship may be able to return
for more-detailed photos later, but it cannot stop and look or pick
up objects.
 The Alcoa Seaprobe (a ship that will presentl y be discusse d in
detail) carries a sonar transpo nder that can be released on com-
mand from the instrum ented pod it support s just above the sea
bottom. If an object is detected that is worth marking , the
transpo nder is released and activate d. With that sonic beacon in
place, it is easy for the ship to find that spot again.
Sonar transpo nders can be expensive, costing up to ten
thousan d dollars, dependi ng on their complex ity, durabili ty, and
other features . No one wants to lose them forever on the sea floor.
Therefo re some varieties are suspend ed from a float and held
down by a weight. By means of a coded sonar signal, the weight
can be released so that the transpo nder floats back to the surface
for recovery. The coding is necessa ry so the release device is not
accident ally actuated by other sonars in the area and so it surfaces
only when the person who implant ed it wants it back.
The above discussi on should make it clear that position accu-
racy is one of the importa nt factors in a search operatio n: the best
availabl e instrum entation should be used to keep track of the
searchin g ship's position .
This section has specifically not dealt with other navigati on
schemes , that have either insufficient accurac y for our purpose s,
are intermit tent (like the satellite systems, with a fix every ninety
minutes ), or are too costly and complex (like the gyrosco pic-
accelero meter schemes used by large submari nes).
Now we come to the question of how one goes about finding an-
cient wrecks on the deep-se a floor. A ship that is complet e,
upright, and resting on top of the mud should be easier to find
than one whose wood has disinteg rated and which consists only of
a low mound of resistan t objects covered with mud. We must be
ready for either.
Conside r visual search methods first. It would be nice if one
could look at the bottom of the sea as one would look at a snow-
covered land surface from a low-flying aircraft. There we would
be able to see a large area distinctly and readily pick out small
mounds under the snow at a distance of, say, a kilomete r. The air
offers no barrier to visibility and the human eye is good at detect-
ing small differences in the light reflectivity of various slopes. Un-
fortunat ely, sea water is a conside rable barrier to light transmis -
sion; good visibility even in clear, brightly lighted water would
rarely exceed sixty meters.
These penal ties on light are at least minimized at the bottom of
the deep Medite rranea n. First, it is known for its extremely clear
water, which rivals the mid-oc ean in having very small amoun ts of
suspen ded particles to scatter light and reduce visibility. Second ,
sea water near the bottom at great depth is generally the cleares t
of all. This has often been reporte d, but the cause is not known
for certain. Possibly, salt water, an electrolyte, movin g in the
earth's magnetic field, generates electric curren ts and the small
dust particles near the bottom are either attract ed or repelled by
the bottom , depend ing on their polarity.
"Look ing" means using the human eye ( someti mes whimsically
noted on instrum ent lists as the Mark I Eyeba ll), television, or
photog raphic camera s. Putting a human eye at the sea's bottom
unfortu nately requires that all the rest of the human body be
there too, with all that that entails in the way of suppor ting equip-
ment. The aircraf t is replace d by a glamor ous-so unding sub-
marine . This is a possib le but difficult and expensive way to
search a large area systematically. Part of the proble m is that
lookin g at the bottom from a subma rine is not at all like lookin g
at the land from a low airplan e. The light levels are low, the
colors are all similar brown s, the bottom appear s to slope upwar d
in all directions, and after an hour or so it is very difficult to con-
centrat e. The samen ess produc es boredo m and the mind wande rs;
after a while, it becomes almost exciting to see the submarine"s
own marks in the mud of the bottom . A sustain ed alert search is
difficult, and for a projec t that may require month s of searching,
prefera bly night and day, direct visual inspection of the bottom
from a subma rine seems to be out of the questio n. What one
gains by using the Mark I Eyeball is maxim um definition, color
( such as it is), and no electronic complications. These are more
than offset by the difficulties of keepin g a subme rsible operat ing.
The vastness of the sea bottom and the small area being observ ed
at any momen t gives a low search rate.
Looking with photographic cameras is part of a search metho d
used with some success by the U. S. Navy. The system is to tow
 the camera and its strobe lights along on the end of a wire, taking
photos as fast as the film can be advanced to the next frame and
the strobe condensers recharged. The height of the camera above
the bottom is adjusted by changing the speed of the ship and the
length of the wire, in accordance with information from an echo
sounder at the camera. Experience combined with trial and error
is used to determine the amount of light required and the height
from which the bottom can best be seen.
Professor Harold Edgerton, inventor of many high-speed pho-
tographic techniques, has long been expert in deepwater pho-
tography. His cameras and lights are automatic, set to take pic-
tures at predetermined intervals; they are mounted in a rugged
frame and lowered on the steel wire of the ship's main winch ( not
a conducting cable). The camera is maintained at the proper
height above the bottom by means of a pinger attached to its
frame which sends out a series of pings that are recorded on the
ship's echo sounder. Both the direct signal and the bottom reflec-
tion of it make dark lines, and the distance between the lines rep-
resents the distance of the camera above the bottom. By letting
out or taking in the wire, camera height can be adjusted.
The advantage of a photographic system is that the instan-
taneous light from a strobe is much greater than can be sustained
by a continuing light source such as is required for television.
With this high light level, it is possible to increase the stand-off
distance of the camera above the bottom and to see a larger area
of bottom in better perspective. The existence of a high-quality
permanent record such as a photograph is also valuable, although,
in "shooting blind," a hundred times more pictures are taken than
can be used in order to insure that the proper areas are covered.
Of course, photo prints are made of only a few frames, after the
searchers have scanned the long rolls of negatives and marked the
ones that are useful.
Television cameras are a more direct way to look at the bottom.
These have been in development since 1950, when the British
Navy first obtained television pictures of the submarine Affray on
the sea bottom. In the past few years, improvements have been
coming thick and fast, but for much of the past twenty-five years
the main probl ems were bow to trans mit signa ls up a long line
witho ut subst antia l loss in quali ty and how to reduc e the lighti ng
requirements.
Television came ras with a definition of six hund red resol ution
lines ( relative to abou t two hund red and fifty lines on a U.S. home
set) and opera ting at light levels of less than one foot- cand le have
beco me inexpensive and are readi ly pack aged for unde rwate r use
to several thous and meters. As with photo graph ic came ras, one
probl em is that light refra ction throu gh a glass face plate into sea
wate r has the same effect as incre asing the focal lengt h of the
lens. The refore, it is necessary to use a wide -angl e lens to look at
the botto m or to see a large area from a short stand -off. In sea
water , objects seem to be enlar ged by abou t one third relati ve to
the way they woul d look in air. How ever, wide -angl e lense s and
appro priate ly curve d face plate s can give a viewing angle of up
to abou t 60° with accep table aberr ation .
Lighting the botto m is a probl em. Mud s are gener ally dark -
color ed and have low reflectivity, so they absor b most of the light
that reaches them . Since the wate r absor bs much of the light
befor e it reach es the botto m-an d reduc es the reflected light even
more as it travels back to the came ra--o ne must use far highe r
levels of light unde r wate r than are ordin arily used in air. More -
over, if there are dust parti,cles in the wate r, these tend to scatt er
the light and reflect it back into the came ra, maki ng them look like
brigh t specks and block ing out the darke r and more dista nt bot-
tom that is of prime intere st.
Ther e are ways to overc ome these probl ems. First , it is
inefficient to use ordin ary white light, becau se it is easily abso rbed
by sea wate r and is only abou t 20 per cent as efficient as it is in
air. The red end of its spect rum will be lost at once . Rath er, one
looks for specific wave lengt hs that are optim al for light trans mis-
sion in sea wate r; the best are in the blue- green part of the spec-
trum . Much exper imen tation has show n that an emer ald-g reen
thalli um-io dide- vapo r light of 5350 angst rom units emits light at
the wave lengt h most readi ly trans mitte d by sea wate r. Whe n these
lights are used with a came ra such as the J ayma r that is peak ed to
receive their frequency, the television sees much bette r than a
diver.
11. The TVSS (Television Search and Salvage), with W. Bascom, J. Mar-
desich, and H . Stubbs, who built it for Seafinders, Inc. The. grab is activated
by hydraulic cylinders in view of the television camera above. This one was
designed for recovering bronze cannon and silver treasure from depths to
fifteen hundred feet. (Seafinders, Inc.)
 12. The TVSS controls consist mainly
of simple toggle switches that are
operated by a man watching the dual monitors.
(Seafinders, Inc. )

13. Alcoa Seaprobe at sea. This is the worid•s largest aluminum ship and one
of the most advanced research ships afloat. It carries fifteen thousand feet of
pipe and is capable of retrieving objects weighing two hundred tons from that
depth. (Alcoa Marine , Inc . )

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14. Willard Bascom inspecting the special aluminum construction of the
Alcoa Seaprobe at Petersen Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin .
(Petersen Shipbuilding Co.)
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15. Captain Ian (Scotty) Crichton (right) at the search controls of Alcoa
Seaprobe. The side-looking sonar record is at his right,. the pod-position
indicator is above his head, and the television monitor is before him. (A/'coa
Marine, Inc. )