NOAA vessel to explore undersea unknown Byzantine vessels.

[ASCLEPIADES]

This photo provided by the Institute for Exploration and Institute for Archaeological Oceanography shows ancient amphorae discovered in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey at a depth of approximately 340 meters

 

 

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Fri Aug 24, 7:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Undersea explorer Robert Ballard leans back and smiles at the screens arrayed above his desk. One displays a view of a remote operating vessel, another scans along a seafloor never before viewed by humans.

It's the Black Sea, not far from Ukraine, a region long closed to outsiders and now yielding a treasure trove of Byzantine vessels that met their ends 1,000 or more years ago.

For Ballard the archaeologist, those vessels and their contents are a delight.For Ballard the explorer, the modern technology he's testing for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is pretty exciting, too.

Thanks to the massive speed of modern communications, talking to him from a desk in Silver Spring, Md., while he is aboard the research vessel Alliance in the Black Sea is almost as simple as talking to him in person.

And that's the idea. Ballard is testing a system planned for use aboard NOAA's new vessel Okeanos Explorer, scheduled to go to sea next year as the first U.S. government vessel dedicated to exploring unknown parts of the ocean.

 

Read more at Yahoo!

 

NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration

Edited August 27, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve!

Map of Site Location

 

 

From Sudak (the green arrow) follow coastline southwest (leftward) to the long peninsula with a sickle-like protrusion. That is Dolphin Mountain. Just northeast of it is another, larger protrusion, which is Mount Eagle. The bay to the left is the beach resort town of Novy Svet, and we are working northeast of the mountain just 50 m offshore.

 

Interactive Dig Black Sea: Shipwreck Research Project