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Far below the Gulf's surface, experts in sub will seek signs of early man in North America
Houston Chronicle ^ | March 2, 2007 | HARVEY RICE

Posted on 03/02/2007 2:08:29 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

GALVESTON — A U.S. Navy submarine that can roll on wheels across the ocean floor will leave Pier 40 today on a weeklong expedition to search the deep for evidence of ancient human habitation.

The Navy's only nuclear-power research vessel, the NR-1, will carry scientists looking for signs of early humans who may have lived on a coast that 19,000 years ago extended 100 miles farther into the Gulf of Mexico than it does today.

If scientists on the expedition, dubbed "Secrets of the Gulf," find evidence that humans roamed those ancient shores, it would push back the earliest known date of prehistoric human habitation in North America by about 8,000-10,000 years, said Dwight Coleman, the expedition's chief scientist.

Scientists also will examine the effects of rising sea levels following the last Ice Age, which could offer insights into how to deal with the expected rise in sea levels caused by warming temperatures.

Robert Ballard, the scientist who discovered the wreckage of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck, will direct the search from a telecommunications center lined with 50-inch plasma monitors at the Institute for Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.

Ballard, along with scientists at five other U.S. locations, will monitor instruments giving temperature, depth, water salinity and other data along with images from the submarine broadcast via satellite in real time, and be able to give directions to the two scientists on board.

Ballard will have 16 communications lines allowing him to speak directly with scientists on board the submarine and its support ship, the 238-foot Carolyn Chouest, crammed with scientific equipment and high-tech communications gear.

The 24 scientists on board the vessels will use sonar to map an ancient coastline, now about 390 feet below the surface, that would have roughly followed the present coral reefs that make up the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, overseen by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

"Nobody's ever found anything from 20,000 years ago offshore, but that's because nobody has ever looked," said anthropologist David Robinson, a member of the expedition from the University of Connecticut.

Robinson said that even if the expedition failed to find evidence of human habitation, it would lay the groundwork for doing so by determining the location of the ancient coast and the prehistoric beds of Texas rivers like the Sabine and Trinity.

Ballard said the best place for human settlement is where a river meets the sea, places covered by the sea after the last ice age and until now in waters too deep to explore.

The Flower Garden Banks are coral reefs lush with wildlife on top of salt domes that have pushed up from the sea beds. The salt would have been above water and sought by humans and animals alike 19,000 years ago, making it a prime location for hunting, Ballard said.

If they get lucky, the scientists might spot a trash heap used by ancient humans or the remains of a salt mine, he said. The expedition also will help map the undersea territory of the United States, he said.

"We have better maps of Mars than we do of submerged America," said Ballard, who noted that 50 percent of U.S. territory is underwater.

Ballard said the expedition also was a test run for technology that would find its fullest expression in a NOAA research vessel being outfitted with the latest technology in a Seattle dry dock.

The Okeanos Explorer will explore the oceans 10 months a year, beaming a constant stream of information to the Inner Space Center, a command center under construction at the Institute for Exploration in Kingston, R.I.

The Inner Space Center will be to undersea exploration what the NASA Space Center in Houston is to outer space exploration, Ballard said.

"Instead of, 'Houston, we've got a problem,' it will be, 'Kingston, we've got a problem,' " he said.

The expedition cost of about $300,000 is shared by NOAA, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, the Institute for Exploration, Immersion Presents and the University of Rhode Island, Ballard said.

Two scientists, a geologist and an archaeologist, will share the cramped quarters with the 13-member crew.

Researchers also will take sediment samples, explore brine lakes that seep from the salt domes and view mud volcanoes formed by escaping methane gas.

harvey.rice@chron.com

On the Web

Live webcasts from the expedition hosted by Ballard will be broadcast by Immersion Presents from Sunday to March 9 at noon, 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Houston time at www.immersionpresents.org and www.oceanslive.org


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climatechange; environment; godsgravesglyphs; iceage; oceans; waterlevels
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
a coast that 19,000 years ago extended 100 miles farther into the Gulf of Mexico than it does today

It's Bush's fault!

21 posted on 03/02/2007 11:26:17 AM PST by T. Buzzard Trueblood ("Pray for America. She needs it." - Ted Nugent)
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To: Lurking in Kansas
Our tax dollars at work? Jeez.

Spare me! $300,000 is less than half the median price of of a house in my town. This work could help settle some enormous questions and it needs to be done. If you want to bitch, do it about stuff that really is a waste like subsidies to Kansas farmers.

22 posted on 03/02/2007 11:41:43 AM PST by Bernard Marx
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Very interesting stuff. Thanks for posting the article.


23 posted on 03/02/2007 11:55:34 AM PST by elli1
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
The 24 scientists on board the vessels will use sonar to map an ancient coastline, now about 390 feet below the surface

Global warming is a b****.

24 posted on 03/02/2007 12:35:08 PM PST by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Naval Research Vessel (NR-1)
25 posted on 03/02/2007 2:30:41 PM PST by uglybiker (AU-TO-MO-BEEEEEEEL?!!)
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To: uglybiker; Cincinatus' Wife; SunkenCiv

fascinating, wouldn't it be great to be on board?

26 posted on 03/02/2007 3:20:07 PM PST by Fred Nerks (Read THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD free pdf download. Link on my bio page.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Very very exciting.


27 posted on 03/02/2007 4:54:25 PM PST by happygrl
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To: fanfan
Underworld bump.

Oustanding book. Great thread, too. Count me in for spending money on the search for ice-age civilizations.

28 posted on 03/02/2007 8:55:22 PM PST by Dominic Harr (Conservative: The "ant", to a liberal's "grasshopper".)
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from the Ancient Times group of the now-defunct The Globe forum system:

1754. Re: Artifacts in America

By: SunkenCiv

Bob Ballard studies the sea floor all over the world, looking for a variety of things. Years ago he searched Loch Ness to see if there was a large creature of some kind. He's best known for his discovery of the Titanic. But this particular study pertains to the inundated former habitation of humans.

Paleo-indians Of The Ice Age
www.ife.org/ife/expeditions/PaleoIndians/index.cfm

Paleo-Indians of the Ice Age 2000 is a multi-phased program to locate ancient shorelines of the last Ice Age when paleo-indian populations were living and hunting on this now submerged landmass. During Phase I of the project, the Navy's research submarine NR-1 was used to survey portions of the Hudson Shelf and Canyon off western Long Island.

Hudson Shelf 1998 - Paleo-indians Of The Ice Age
www.ife.org/ife/expeditions/hudson98.cfm

Surprisingly, little bottom-trawling activity was observed and water visibility was good to excellent, averaging 20 feet. Several large geologic regions were examined and documented, including the delineation of an ancient shoreline characterized by thick deposits of broken sea shells. Because NR-1 cannot operate in water depths of less than 155 feet, the submarine was unable to explore major portions of the flood plain where numerous woolly mammoth and mastodon teeth have been recovered. We are grateful to the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center for its partnership and support.
April 18, 2001 23:29:31 EDT

29 posted on 03/02/2007 10:38:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv (I last updated my profile on Thursday, February 19, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Bernard Marx
Spare me! $300,000 is less than half the median price of of a house in my town.

Yeah, I know $300K -chump change.

This work could help settle some enormous questions and it needs to be done.

Yeah, especially:
Robinson said that even if the expedition failed to find evidence of human habitation, it would lay the groundwork for doing so by determining the location of the ancient coast and the prehistoric beds of Texas rivers like the Sabine and Trinity.
Funny thing, I couldn't go to sleep last night wondering about this.

If you want to bitch, do it about stuff that really is a waste like subsidies to Kansas farmers.

I do bitch about that.

30 posted on 03/03/2007 7:20:50 AM PST by Lurking in Kansas (Nothing witty here... move on.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

What a great adventure!!


31 posted on 03/03/2007 7:28:46 AM PST by bert (K.E. N.P.)
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To: bert

Indeed it is!


32 posted on 03/03/2007 7:48:10 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: fanfan

"Underworld" Great book, read his other books too. Very interesting hypotheses about missing early civilizations and how to perhaps locate them.


33 posted on 03/03/2007 9:18:33 PM PST by gleeaikin
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 GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.


34 posted on 01/28/2012 7:19:21 AM PST by SunkenCiv (FReep this FReepathon!)
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