HOT NEWS !

By Matthew M. Burke


Eric Takakjian was overcome with excitement as he scraped sea anemones from an unknown shipwreck's wheel this past weekend.

There at the sunken ship's helm, Takakjian and the dive's videographer Patrick Rooney were able to make out the engraving, "NEWCASTLE CITY LIVERPOOLE," through their diving masks.

The discovery ended months of speculation about the name of the wreck that was discovered by Takakjian's team in August after several years of historical research and the inspection of "interesting" sonar targets south of Nantucket.

The ship had finally been definitively identified as the British steamship SS Newcastle City, a vessel that was carrying cargo when it was lost on Dec. 23, 1887, after striking an uncharted shoal in the wee hours en route to New York from South Shields, England.

The Newcastle City's 26-man crew and sole passenger rowed for six hours in two boats to the Nantucket Lightship, where they were rescued.

"We were just completely thrilled," Takakjian said Thursday in a telephone interview. "We were both screaming underwater like maniacs. We were just psyched beyond belief."


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By Sarah Freeman


Anyone looking for an antidote to the onslaught of bad news is unlikely to find it in the latest report from the Marine Conservation Society.

While recent weeks have seen the world preoccupied by the global banking disaster and desperately unpredictable share prices, British seas are facing an equally precarious time as we pay the price for years of over-fishing and unregulated pollution.

After 25 years of quiet campaigning and gentle persuasion, the MCS last night launched its Silent Seas report in the hope the shocking statistics will finally jolt the powers-that-be into action and force the inclusion of a Marine Bill in the next Queen's Speech.

"Put simply, too many fish are taken from the sea, too much rubbish is thrown into the sea and too little is done to protect previous marine life and habits," says Dr Simon Brockington, the organisation's head of conservation.

"In the next few years, we're going to start seeing the effects of climate change; the first effects are already there, such as migration of fish and plankton types. Unless we build a healthy ecosystem, the impacts of climate change will be far worse. Inaction is not an option."
 

By Byron Crawford


As a lifeguard at Las Vegas' Sahara hotel during his younger days, Rudy Lewis never imagined diving to the Atlantic Ocean's floor to recover historic artifacts aboard centuries-old ships.

The entrepreneur and developer who lives near Simpsonville, Ky., recounted his life's journey recently while putting several cannons from Spanish shipwrecks into a small stream on his farm.

There they would remain preserved from further exposure to the air until they could be properly treated, refurbished and used as educational exhibits.

In the years since Lewis learned about diving from Navy "frogmen" whom he met as a lifeguard in the late 1950s, he has honed his skills along treacherous coral reefs on which many ships broke apart during hurricanes and sank with sometimes valuable cargoes.

As owner of several sport-fishing charters south of Florida's Key Largo years ago, he was lured farther out to sea by stories told by wreck divers who passed through the Keys with treasures salvaged from 17th- and 18th-century wrecks on distant reefs.

From BBC News

The 9,000-year-old remains of a mother and her baby discovered off the coast of Israel provide the earliest concrete evidence of human TB, say researchers.

The bones were excavated from Alit-Yam, an ancient Neolithic village near Haifa, which has been submerged in the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

The experts from University College London and Tel-Aviv University used DNA technology to confirm the bacterium.

Others have found remains that hint at TB dating from about 500,000 years ago.

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From UNESCO


Twenty States have now ratified the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, which therefore will enter into force on 2 January 2009, three months after the deposit of the 20th instrument of acceptance.

“This is a very important step in the history of the safeguarding of cultural heritage,” declared Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO.

“This represents an essential addition to UNESCO’s standard-setting apparatus.

From now on, it will be possible to offer legal protection to the historical memory that is in underwater cultural heritage, thus curtailing the growing illicit trade by looters.”


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From Elmundo


La Policía Nacional ha recuperado cientos de piezas de incalculable valor histórico y arqueológico en diferentes operaciones en Almería, Jaén y Palma de Mallorca.

Agentes del Grupo Especial de Respuesta al Crimen Organizado (GRECO) de Palma de Mallorca y de la Brigada Provincial de la Polícia Judicial han sido los encargados de llevar a cabo una de estas operaciones en la que se han recuperado cerca de un centenar de piezas de importante valor arqueológico procedentes del expolio en yacimientos submarinos.

Esta actuación ha tenido lugar en el marco de una operación contra el tráfico de estupefacientes en la que han sido detenidas seis personas y se han intervenido 500 plantas de marihuana.

Por su parte, los agentes de la Brigada Provincial de la Policía Judicial de Almería, en colaboración con la UDEV de la Comisaría de Jaén, iniciaron una investigación conjunta tras el robo ocurrido en la Catedral de Jaén el pasado 18 de septiembre, en el que fueron sustraídas de una vitrina del museo varias joyas episcopales de alto valor histórico.

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By Tom Mooney


In May, as a handful of local archaeologists watched from the gunwales of four research ships, warfare scientists for the Navy and federal oceanographers lowered several high-tech robots into Narragansett Bay’s waters between Portsmouth and Jamestown.

Some of the robots resembled torpedoes. Others looked like mechanical crabs. The newest of their kind, the remote-controlled, sonar-imaging machines had been designed to find mines buried on the sea floor or attached to ship hulls.

But for two weeks, the Navy had offered them for another purpose as well: to test their capabilities in locating archaeological artifacts hidden, in some cases, under two centuries of silt. 

For marine archaeologists Charlotte Taylor, D. K. “Kathy” Abbass and Rod Mather, those two spring weeks would be a cruel tease.


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From Science Daily


The submarine Grunion arrived at Pearl Harbor on June 20, 1942. The vessel completed pre-patrol training before departing on its first war patrol June 30. Grunion's commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Abele, was ordered to proceed to the Aleutian Islands and patrol westward from Attu on routes between the Aleutians and the Japanese Empire.

On July 10, Grunion was reassigned to the area north of Kiska. Over the next 20 days, the submarine reported firing on an enemy destroyer, sinking three destroyer-type vessels, and attacking unidentified enemy ships near Kiska.

Grunion's last transmission was received on July 30, 1942. The submarine reported heavy antisubmarine activity at the entrance to Kiska, and that it had 10 torpedoes remaining forward.

On the same day, Grunion was directed to return to Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. There was no contact or sighting of the submarine after July 30, and on August 16, Grunion was reported lost.

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