fascinating, wouldn't it be great to be on board?
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
It's Bush's fault!
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.
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for posting the article.
Global warming is a b****.
fascinating, wouldn't it be great to be on board?
Very very exciting.
Oustanding book. Great thread, too. Count me in for spending money on the search for ice-age civilizations.
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
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.
What a great adventure!!
Indeed it is!
"Underworld" Great book, read his other books too. Very interesting hypotheses about missing early civilizations and how to perhaps locate them.
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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