Exploring Sinop D

Science has made some stunning advances in underwater technology in the past few years. A new expedition by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Institute for Exploration (IFE) is testing a new system designed to be installed in the newest of NOAA's exploration ships, the Okeanos Explorer. The new system will allow virtually any expert real-time access to an ongoing undersea exploration. Dr. Robert Ballard is heavily involved, as one would expect. There is a lot of information on the program and the mission at the NOAA website.

Two Byzantine shipwrecks discovered in recent years off the coasts of Ukraine and Turkey, ‘Chersonesos A’ and ‘Sinop D’, will be investigated in detail to characterize the environment – geological, physical, chemical and biological – to study the preservation of archaeological material in the suboxic and anoxic waters of the Black Sea, where there is very little oxygen. We plan to carry out baseline surveys of the initial environmental conditions at each site, ongoing environmental monitoring to anticipate and mitigate any adverse environmental effects due to excavation, an assessment of the natural and man-made risks facing each archaeological site, and an analysis on how the wreck sites can be used for studying the surrounding environment. In addition to scientific studies of the shipwrecks, we hope that the results from this project will help further knowledge about in situ (on site) preservation of archaeological material for the development of underwater museums.

Here's an example of the stunning video images the new equipment is capable of:

Photo Courtesy of NOAA and the Institute for Exploration and Institute for Archaeological Oceanography

Here's an Associated Press article on the expedition.

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.

"Its mission, literally, is to go where no one has gone before on planet Earth," Ballard said.

"That means that the exploration could encounter a biological discovery, a geological discovery, hopefully for many of us an archaeological discovery. So there is no way of knowing in advance what the discovery is going to be," he said.

The plan is to have dozens or hundreds of scientists participate without ever having to leave their homes and universities.

The ship will be in high-speed communications with a center at the University of Rhode Island, and from there via Internet2 to universities and science centers across the country, calling on whatever expertise is needed.

Ballard likens it to a hospital emergency room.

"An emergency room has no idea what the ambulance is going to deliver at 3 o'clock Sunday morning," he explained. "They don't know if it's going to be a head injury, a mother having a baby, a heart attack or whatever," so the hospital has a system for doctors to be on call.

"Now we're doing the same sort of thing in support of NOAA," he said.

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