Seafarer obtains dig and identify on Lantana site

From The Sacramento Bee

Seafarer Exploration Corporation announced today that they have completed phase I on a shipwreck site located near Lantana Beach, FL and are moving into Phase II, a dig and identify permit which allows Seafarer to dig and determine various artifacts to help identify the ship.

The final phase of excavation will be Phase III, full salvage.

Seafarer received a permit from the State of Florida for a shipwreck site located off of Lantana Beach, Florida in 2012.

The site has recently been surveyed using a Geometrics 882 Cesium Vapor Magnetometer and this survey work showed compelling evidence that a large part of the ship lies buried in a relatively compacted area. 

Having completed phase I of the mapping survey and underwater video, Seafarer is preparing to begin digging and identifying the wreck.

Items found and documented on this site in past explorations by third parties suggest the wreck could be a French or Spanish ship from the late 1600s. It will require more work to determine with accuracy.

Kyle Kennedy, Seafarer's CEO, stated "While we have dig sites currently under permit, the Lantana Beach site represents one of our more intriguing ventures.

In many cases historic shipwrecks are spread out over wide areas which can cause exploration and recovery to be very time consuming and expensive but this particular site looks very compact. We are very excited by what we discovered in Phase I and are eagerly anticipating Phase II which will begin immediately after obtaining our Department of Environmental Protection and US Army Corps of Engineers permits."

Seafarer also announced a new collaboration with Dr. John de Bry, a paleographer specializing in sixteenth- through eighteenth-century French, Spanish and English manuscripts who also serves as the Director of the Center for Historical Archaeology in Melbourne, FL. 

Dr. de Bry has also participated in a number of field excavation projects in the United States, the Caribbean, South America and the Philippines and will provide technical expertise on Seafarer's many excavation projects.

"We are moving forward on various fronts," Kennedy continued.

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