Journal of Maritime Archaeology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-018-9197-z

ORIGINAL PAPER

Telepresence‑Enabled Maritime Archaeological Exploration

in the Deep

Michael L. Brennan1 · Frank Cantelas2 · Kelley Elliott2 · James P. Delgado1 ·

Katherine L. C. Bell3 · Dwight Coleman4 · Allison Fundis5 · Jack Irion6 ·
Hans K. Van Tilburg7 · Robert D. Ballard5

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Telepresence-enabled exploration of deep sea environments has developed over the past
30 years, providing access to archaeologists, scientists, and the general public to sites oth-
erwise inaccessible due to depth. Pioneered through the inception of the JASON Project in
the late 1980 s, telepresence missions have expanded to two dedicated ships of exploration,
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer and exploration vessel Nautilus, and has been implemented
on a series of opportunistic missions on other vessels. This paper chronicles the history of
the use of telepresence for the exploration of shipwrecks in deep water as well as how this
capability has allowed the public to engage with such missions. Broadening the scope of
who can explore the deep sea, telepresence has also expanded what is observed and docu-
mented in the deep, which speaks to humanity’s use of the maritime world and an archaeol-
ogy of discard through our material disposed of into the deep sea.

keywords Telepresence · Maritime archaeology · Shipwrecks · Ocean exploration

Introduction

Investigations of shipwrecks in deep water are limited in scope by our ability to reach them.
Rather than teams of divers poring over a site with tape measures and cameras and the abil-
ity to feel a site, we are limited to viewing a wreck through the single lens of a remotely

* Michael L. Brennan
[email protected]
1
SEARCH Inc., Jacksonville, FL, USA
2
NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Silver Spring, MD, USA
3
MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, USA
4
University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI, USA
5
Ocean Exploration Trust, Old Lyme, CT, USA
6
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, New Orleans, LA, USA
7
NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Silver Spring, MD, USA

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Fig. 1  Archaeologists in the control van on Nautilus directing the exploration of USS Independence. Image
courtesy of Ocean Exploration Trust

operated vehicle (ROV), or in some cases the single porthole of a manned submersible.
However, in addition to an ROV projecting the scientists and archaeologists onto the sea-
floor remotely in lieu of diving it themselves, the development of telepresence technology
has allowed for expertise and participation in an expedition to join from locations on land.
Telepresence vastly expands the ability to remotely participate in ocean science. For dec-
ades, scientists have operated exploration vehicles from the relative safety of the surface
ship. There now exists the capability to bring experts from many disciplines to a site in
real time and incorporate their knowledge into the assessment of a deep-water archaeo-
logical site, as the exploration is taking place (Fig. 1). While expanding archaeological
exploration into multidisciplinary capabilities, this mode of operation is also a paradigm
shift. Archaeologists are no longer alone in conducting physical measurements and exca-
vations, but instead now direct and oversee ROV pilots, navigators, and mapping techni-
cians in the collection of measurements and photographs. Time on the seabed has to be
used efficiently, balancing multidisciplinary needs and providing opportunity for a range
of scientists and interests. This also enables an organic discussion of a shipwreck’s site
formation processes as an interdisciplinary team conducts exploration. Telepresence has
become a more common, and substantial, tool for deep-water archaeological investigation.
The capacity to engage with an unlimited number of scientists, archaeologists, histo-
rians, and other specialists also broadens the scope of deep-water maritime archaeology.
Where previous missions would target a single wreck and bring the “right” specialists on
board, telepresence allows for shipboard personnel to respond to discoveries in real time
and engage with whomever is needed, as dictated by each discovery. As ocean exploration
expands, so too does the documentation of the modern seabed to include benthic ecol-
ogy along with shipwreck sites, but also provides a means to assess humanity’s broader

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

impact on the ocean as artifacts of the recent past now imprinted on the maritime land-
scape. In this issue, we discuss an archaeology of discard as it relates to ocean explora-
tion and deep-water archaeology through the broadening scope of the manmade objects we
encounter during deep sea missions. Most important, however, is the point that telepres-
ence enables the public to not only watch but to also interact with archaeologists. Illus-
trating that archaeology is not some abstract science done by an elite group, missions are
instead carried out transparently, open to all to experience and engage with in real time
and provide feedback as we conduct our work. The following is an overview of the devel-
opment of telepresence and use in maritime archaeology and the missions that have been
conducted in this way.
The first telepresence-based investigation of a deep-water shipwreck site was in 1989
when Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the JASON Project investigated a Roman
shipwreck at Skerki Bank between Carthage and Rome (Ballard 1993). Subsequent expe-
ditions located additional wrecks along this maritime corridor, which essentially became
a testing laboratory for evolving deep sea technology, including mapping, high definition
imaging, excavation, and telepresence. Since then, a slow but steady paradigm shift in how
oceanographic research can be conducted has developed as more scientists and archaeolo-
gists have participated in what have for the most part been confined to deep-water projects,
and due in a large part to support from agencies such as NOAA’s Office of Ocean Explora-
tion and Research (NOAA-OER). Over the course of almost two decades, the capabilities
of at-sea technology, satellite availability, and downlink site accessibility for the live feeds
have organically expanded the reach of telepresence. The major infrastructural component
is the downlink for the satellite feed to be distributed to command consoles and online
media sites. A hub for this is the Inner Space Center (ISC), which was initially set up in a
temporary capacity at the University of Rhode Island before a permanent physical center
was constructed on the Graduate School of Oceanography campus and opened in 2009.
The ISC can support telecommunications and interactivity from multiple ships of explora-
tion at one time, which has included numerous expeditions by exploration vessel (E/V)
Nautilus and NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer (Coleman and Ballard 2011). Video feeds are
distributed from ISC to Exploration Command Centers (ECCs) set up at other universi-
ties and science centers where scientists can participate in expeditions, as well as internet
portals for public viewership. Other research vessels have been outfitted with telepresence
systems for particular missions including academic research vessels in the University-
National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet such as the R/V Atlantis, R/V
Endeavor, and R/V Thompson, and private vessels such as the M/V Alucia and R/V Petrel,
who most recently broadcasted ROV dives during the investigation of the wreck of USS
Indianapolis.
Through the combination of ships of exploration, ROVs, and telepresence technology,
dozens of shipwrecks have been discovered and investigated while streaming the video and
audio of this research live to audiences around the world, including shipwrecks in the Med-
iterranean and Black Sea (Brennan and Ballard 2013), Gulf of Mexico (Irion et al. 2014;
Brennan et al. 2015), and Pacific Ocean (Lickliter-Mundon et al. 2016). Most recently,
Nautilus explored a number of shipwrecks along the western United States coast, includ-
ing the WWII aircraft carrier USS Independence (Delgado et al. 2018a) and USS Bugara
(Delgado et al. 2018b). At the same time, Okeanos Explorer conducted a series of expedi-
tions in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico that included a number of shipwreck targets,
including the wreck of a Japanese water tanker, Amakasu Maru No. 1, and a B-29 aircraft
that crashed off Tinian, during the CAPSTONE project (Cantelas et al. 2017).

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Ships of Exploration Paradigm

In 2000, then-president Bill Clinton convened a panel of the nation’s leading ocean explor-
ers, scientists and educators to develop the first US strategy for exploring the largely
unknown world ocean. The resulting report, Discovering Earth’s Final Frontier: A US
Strategy for Ocean Exploration laid out their recommendations which included under-
taking a national ocean exploration program and supporting dedicated ocean exploration
“flagships” outfitted with state-of-the-art technologies. Such technologies would include
outreach infrastructure to facilitate education and outreach from these ships through telep-
resence. These recommendations have come to fruition through NOAA’s Office of Ocean
Exploration and Research (NOAA-OER) and their support of two dedicated ships of explo-
ration: E/V Nautilus and NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. Nautilus is owned and operated
by Ocean Exploration Trust (OET).
Both ships use state-of-the art technologies to map and investigate unknown and poorly
known areas of the ocean, and do this using a unique approach. Operations are multidis-
ciplinary, and focused on high priority areas identified by the science and management
community-primarily through community workshops. Operations are also telepresence-
enabled and use satellite telecommunications and broadcasting technology to send live,
high-definition video and data to shore. The live video, audio, data and other internet-based
tools allow scientists onshore to provide input and help guide the seagoing operation in
real-time while simultaneously engaging the general public and sharing the excitement of
ocean exploration. Having a dedicated platform has also allowed NOAA-OER and OET to
build an extensive science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) education and
outreach program around the E/V Nautilus operation that heavily utilizes telepresence.

Early Use of Telepresence for Archaeology

The initial concept of telepresence influenced the migration of deep-water submersible

operations from manned to unmanned by allowing remote engineering control and remote
scientific participation onboard the surface ship supporting ROV dives. For unmanned
ROV operations, with scientists either aboard a ship or at a facility on shore, the idea is
the same that participation is done remotely without sending humans below the surface.
In his initial discussion of this new paradigm shift, Ballard (1993) saw scientists on shore
as a second phase of using “teleoperated” technology after ROVs. Both were developed
out of the idea of increasing the rate of exploration, which was restricted by human’s lim-
itations in getting to and staying at depth in manned submersibles. This led to the first
academic ROV system of Medea/Jason, a camera sled eye-in-the-sky vehicle tethered to
Jason, which was designed to work just above the seafloor with manipulator arms, sensors,
and other tools. The development of this system was the first step in the larger objective of
a system that could be controlled from shore with live participants anywhere in the world
(Ballard 1993).
The live outreach capability provided by the satellite connection, later termed ‘telep-
resence’, developed as The JASON Project, a non-profit organization that managed the
educational curriculum based on yearly live expeditions enabled through telepresence
technology. The first 2 years’ expeditions were the only ones that focused on shipwrecks,
whereas future projects expanded to include aspects of earth and biological sciences. The
1989 expedition brought Jason and Medea to Skerki Bank in the Mediterranean Sea for the

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

vehicles’ first major operation. The expedition broadcast the exploration of the Marsili sea-
mount volcano and a fourth century AD Roman shipwreck that sank along the trade route
between Carthage and Rome, which was found the year before with the towed camera sled,
Argo (Ballard 1993). The 1990 JASON Project investigated two war of 1812 schooners that
sank in Lake Ontario in 1813 during a storm, USS Hamilton and USS Scourge. During this
expedition, students at downlink sites were able to pilot the ROVs through a joystick and
display connected to the controls on the ship by the satellite link and terrestrial network,
illustrating the capability of remote operation from shore.
The integration of telepresence capabilities into expeditions continued over the next
decade as technology improved. During this time, Ballard founded the Institute for Explo-
ration at Mystic Aquarium in CT, and established the temporary facility for the ISC at the
University of Rhode Island. Through these institutions, the first telepresence-enabled expe-
dition returned to the Black Sea and Skerki Bank, where a variety of Roman and Byzantine
shipwrecks had been discovered on expeditions in the late 1990 s and early 2000 s (Ballard
2008; Ballard et al. 2000; Ward and Ballard 2004). An expedition with the US Navy’s
research submarine NR-1 in 1995 and a subsequent ROV expedition in 1997 had resulted
in locating an additional seven shipwrecks at this trade route crossroads, including two
nineteenth century wooden sailing ships, as well as two ‘amphora alleys’ where individual
jars were hypothesized to have been thrown overboard during transits (Ballard et al. 2000).
The following year, telepresence also enabled a live broadcast to the national geographic
channel for the return to Titanic expedition as well as a series of educational broadcasts
from the ship to participating downlink sites where the JASON Foundation for Education
had created learning modules based on the expedition (Ballard and Durbin 2008; Ballard
and Sweeney 2004; Weirich 2004).
The game changed in 2008 when two ships of exploration came online—NOAA Ship
Okeanos Explorer by NOAA-OER and E/V Nautilus by Ballard’s new Ocean Explora-
tion Trust—which would both be outfitted with permanent telepresence technologies for
conducting multiple yearly telepresence-enabled expeditions, working toward the goal of
a continual, year-round streams from live expeditions. Nautilus conducted a 6-week expe-
dition in 2009 ahead of major shipyard work to install dynamic positioning thrusters and
controls, while its telepresence systems came online for the 2010 expedition in the Aegean
and Mediterranean Seas. During that expedition, nine ancient shipwrecks were discovered,
which were the first of dozens in areas in which Nautilus operated until 2012. Nautilus
Live (www.nauti​lusli​ve.org), the web portal for the live stream from the ship, also launched
in 2010. At the same time, Okeanos Explorer conducted its maiden voyage in Indonesia,
where its live feeds were streamed to shore-side ECCs via Internet2. By 2012, the video
feeds were publicly available to anyone with an internet connection via the ocean explorer
web portal (http://ocean​explo​rer.noaa.gov). That same year, Okeanos Explorer expeditions
conducted ROV dives on shipwrecks for the first time and explored five sites in the Gulf
of Mexico. Both ships’ live video feeds were routed through the ISC at the University of
Rhode Island, which became the hub for all telepresence operations including a “mission
control” space where teams of researchers could collaborate and interact with the ships’
science teams. These expeditions proved that the use of hardened telepresence technology
and the operational workflows associated with remote science participation could become
the norm for the evolving ocean exploration program.

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Telepresence‑Enabled Exploration Workshops

In 2013, Nautilus changed operating areas from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Mex-
ico and Caribbean Sea, and again when it moved to the eastern Pacific Ocean in 2015.
Prior to these regional shifts, OET, in partnership with NOAA-OER, held Workshops on
Telepresence-enabled Exploration in the anticipated operating areas to convene experts in
the regions to agree upon high-priority targets for exploration in these two areas (Bell et al.
2013, 2015). These workshops were two in a series of six hosted or co-hosted by OER
from 2007 to 2014.
The Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean workshops began with talks about the
history, theory, and practice of telepresence-enabled ocean exploration to introduce partici-
pants to the new paradigm since many had never used it before. Participants then broke out
into groups according to scientific discipline-archaeology, biology, geology, and physics
and chemistry—to (1) identify the most pressing regional questions that could be answered
using telepresence-enabled exploration in each discipline, and (2) identify transects that
could be executed to address and/or answer the key questions posed. Some of the key ques-
tions ranged from trade routes to the biogeography of deep reefs to regional tectonics. The
transects identified by each disciplinary breakout group were then compiled and the over-
laps between them were then discussed by a session of breakout groups according to geo-
graphic regions in the ocean (Fig. 2). Those groups were tasked with refining the maps fur-
ther to identify high priority target areas that could be explored with telepresence-enabled
ships to address key questions in multiple disciplines.

Fig. 2  Results map from the Caribbean workshop identifying areas of interest. Archaeological target areas
are shown in purple (from Bell et al. 2013)

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

The Caribbean Archaeology Breakout Group noted that “the region holds great poten-
tial for discovery of archaeological sites, as it has been a highly active area for maritime
trade since the colonial period. Therefore, it is probable that shipwrecks will be encoun-
tered during exploration anywhere in the region, and exploration teams should be prepared
for such events” (Bell et al. 2013). The Pacific archaeology breakout group focused on
“hubs of historic maritime activity, known naval battle sites, and known or suspected deep-
water wreck sites. The group also considered the development of Pacific maritime econo-
mies, intercultural exchange, and the movement of people within a marine landscape” (Bell
et al. 2015). These workshops were the first step in setting up the group of scientists and
archaeologists who would later participate in the live expeditions from shore and provide
input into identifying dive locations and planning the details of each dive. The reports from
these workshops guided expeditions in these regions where the ships have been working,
and continue to as new expeditions are planned.

Telepresence‑Enabled Shipwreck Site Assessments

As telepresence capability developed on the two ships of exploration platforms, a slow

acceptance of the new exploration paradigm began among the maritime archaeology com-
munity. Casual interest gave way to active participation as further infrastructure was devel-
oped to help enable connectivity, including conference calls, email lists, and chat rooms
with the scientists on board the ships that allowed archaeologists and other interested sci-
entists viewing from remote locations on shore to engage directly and offer comments,
opinions, and even direction. During telepresence-enabled Okeanos Explorer expeditions,
archaeology dives always engaged a large number of shore-side science participants with
the archaeology team actively involved in dive planning. These dives also proved to be the
most highly watched by public audiences on the internet, proving the incredible engage-
ment opportunity afforded by maritime history and underwater archaeology. Telepresence
has become a tool in the arsenal of deep-water archaeologists that allows access to sites out
of reach. Live feeds from an expedition are not only publicity, but in fact a mechanism for
conducting real science efficiently in remote places. While direct control of the shipwreck
surveys and investigations remains with the ROV pilots, the engagement of the shipboard
personnel with the teams on shore has allowed for productive and successful exploration
and documentation of numerous shipwrecks in deep water to archaeological standards. The
diverse commentary by multiple remote historians and archaeologists during the live dives,
as embedded audio tracks on the recorded video, proved to be a critically important data
set valuable for the scientific assessment of the sites and useful for post-dive data process-
ing and analysis.

Turkey

Due to the availability of shipyards for significant upgrades to the ship as well as access
to both the Black and Mediterranean Seas, Nautilus spent the first 4 years of operations
home ported in Turkey. During the first year of the Nautilus Live website in 2010, Nautilus
revisited the World War I underwater battlefield of Gallipoli and conducted a live ROV
dive to the wreck of the battleship HMS Triumph sunk in ANZAC Cove. During additional
side-scan sonar survey in the area, a target was located that looked like an amphora-pile

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

type shipwreck. The last dive of the cruise explored this target and determined it to be a
hellenistic shipwreck heavily encrusted with sponges and other growth. Named Gallipoli
A, this is the first unknown sonar target to be identified as a shipwreck live via telepres-
ence, something that would become much more commonplace as Nautilus’ work contin-
ued. The ship sailed south through the Aegean Sea from there to continue earlier work off
the Datça peninsula in southeastern Turkey where the ancient site of Knidos was located,
and explored the waters south of the port of Marmaris in the Mediterranean. Five ancient
shipwrecks were found off Knidos in addition to five found in 2009, and another four off
Marmaris (Brennan et al. 2012). Each of these was found and documented with live view-
ers through Nautilus Live, which continued the process of identifying unknown sonar tar-
gets as shipwrecks live through telepresence.
The following year, Nautilus made its first foray into the Black Sea. The goal of this
expedition was to continue the work started by Ballard in 2000 and 2003 that explored the
paleoshoreline and dynamics of the oxic/anoxic interface and also found well-preserved
shipwrecks in the anoxic zone. Nautilus explored the shelf off Ereğli, Turkey (ancient Her-
aclea) and located five ancient and premodern shipwrecks, and then continued to the coast
of Sinop where the previous wrecks had been found. During the ROV dives to the Byzan-
tine shipwrecks found in 2000, the scientists on board were able to get input live through
telepresence from the scientists and archaeologists who had led those earlier expeditions
as those wrecks were revisited and remapped. In addition to returning to and document-
ing those already known, another four were located. Observations made at these sites par-
alleled those of wrecks found on the previous expeditions in the Aegean Sea, that many
of the shipwrecks exhibited damage from bottom trawling. One of the wrecks found in
2000, Sinop A, was remapped and the new photomosaic showed changes due to trawl nets
moving and removing amphoras and some timbers from the site. Some of the premodern
wrecks that had much of the wooden timbers preserved were unidentifiable piles of jum-
bled wood due to trawl damage (Fig. 3; Brennan et al. 2013). The last shipwreck found
on the expedition was Ereğli E, a Hellenistic shipwreck from the third century BC, which

Fig. 3  ROV image of Eregli C shipwreck from the Black Sea (from Brennan et al. 2013). Image courtesy of
Ocean Exploration Trust

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

showed evidence of having been extensively damaged by trawls to the point that few arti-
facts remained intact. Trawls had also ripped up wooden timbers from the hull as well as
what were later identified as human bones, a femur and teeth (Brennan et al. 2013; Davis
et al. 2018). A return expedition by Nautilus in 2012, 11 months later, found this wreck to
be even further damaged, the bones no longer there, and a remapping of the bathymetry
of the site calculated that 15 m3 of material was removed by trawls in the intervening time
(Brennan et al. 2016).
Nautilus also returned to the Aegean Sea off Knidos in both 2011 and 2012 to
continue sonar surveys and target identification in the deep coastal waters along the
approaches to the ancient harbor. By the end of the 2012 expedition, a total of 26 ancient
and premodern wrecks had been identified, named up through Knidos Z, ranging in date
from the archaic greek period (6–7th century BC) to the Ottoman period (15–16th cen-
tury AD). Two modern shipwrecks were also discovered during side-scan sonar surveys
off the western end of the Datça Peninsula. These ships may have sunk in this region
due to encountering strong winds and heavy seas as they rounded the peninsula heading
north out of waters otherwise shielded by the land. The first was of M/S Dodekanisos, a
Greek passenger ship that sank in a gale in 1958 and found during the 2011 expedition.
Initially, the team thought the wreck was that of a destroyer or small warship but upon
inspecting the site with the Hercules ROV, determined it was a passenger ship, however
no name or hull numbers were visible on the bow or stern, making identification dif-
ficult. This is when the power of telepresence was illustrated. A viewer on the Nautilus
Live website wrote in from Greece and said he recognized the ship as Dodekanisos and
then forwarded a link to an article in a Greek newspaper from 1958. From there, it was
easy to match the photos of the ship in the paper to the images on screen from the ROV.
A month later, a message was received through the website from the grandson of the
captain who died during the sinking and he sent further information about the ship and
the sinking (Brennan 2013).

Fig. 4  ROV image of a recent shipwreck of a sailboat, Miranda, located off southwestern Turkey. Image
courtesy of Ocean Exploration Trust

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

The second modern shipwreck was located just a few 100 m away from Dodekanisos
during the side-scan sonar survey. While the sonar target initially suggested an ancient
shipwreck, upon locating the site underwater, it was found to be a very recent ship-
wreck of a sailing yacht, its sail still raised and lines and buoys floating in the water col-
umn (Fig. 4). The boat was a German-flagged yacht named Miranda. Despite reporting
the find to the Turkish coast guard, no record of the sinking or the owners was found.
Miranda likely sank due to higher-than-expected winds coming around the point of the
Datça Peninsula.

Mediterranean Sea

During the time Nautilus was based in Turkey, expeditions were also conducted to other
areas of the Mediterranean Sea. During one expedition in the straits of sicily off Italy, one
of the most eerie moments in telepresence occurred. A Nautilus Live viewer—a veteran
who flew planes in World War II—wrote into the website and asked if the team had ever
found a WWII plane under water. The ROV pilots had already been moving toward a tar-
get on the vehicle’s scanning sonar and moments after the question was asked, they came
upon the wreckage of an Italian Macchi C202 aircraft from WWII, which remains the only
aircraft that a Nautilus team has found on the seabed, marking an exciting coincidence with
the live audience.
Two expeditions-in 2010 and 2012—explored the flat-topped Eratosthenes Seamount
south of Cyprus to survey pockmarks on the surface of the seamount and the steep sides
to examine tectonic processes affecting the submarine feature. Three shipwrecks were also
located during these ROV transects including two ninteenth century shipwrecks in 2010
(Wachsmann et al. 2011), and a 4–5th century BC amphora shipwreck in 2012 (Cornwell
et al. 2013). In addition to these wrecks, the team also came across more than 150 isolated
amphora and other ceramic artifacts on the seafloor during the ROV’s survey of the sea-
mount crest. Lying at a crossroads between ancient trade routes from the Levant, Egypt,
Cyprus, and the western Mediterranean, these artifacts are representative of sailors dis-
posing of empty containers during transit, similar to the ‘amphora alleys’ identified dur-
ing Skerki Bank surveys (Ballard et al. 2018). Identified by artifact shape and type, the
assemblage from Eratosthenes ranges in date as late as the 14th century AD and as far back
as the second millennium BC (Cornwell et al. 2013; Ballard et al. 2018). Such discoveries
demonstrate the importance of live exploration of previous unexplored areas in deep water
where unexpected finds may require the attention of experts who are not onboard.

Gulf of Mexico

While Nautilus spent its formative years exploring the Mediterranean Sea, Okeanos
Explorer conducted expeditions in the Pacific Ocean, beginning with shakedown opera-
tions off the US west coast and around Hawaii starting in 2008. The first telepresence-
enabled ROV expeditions with remote participants started in Indonesia in 2010 and the
Galapagos in 2011 before transiting the Panama Canal into the Caribbean Sea. A three-leg
expedition in the Gulf of Mexico brought Okeanos to the first shipwrecks it explored with
an ROV, all of which were sonar targets located by the oil and gas industry during lease
block surveys. The goal of the five dives was to ground-truth, image and conduct inter-
disciplinary site characterization of the anomalies to assist in the identification of the sites

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

and possibly aid in determining their historical significance for eligibility to the national
register of historic places. The first site, in DeSoto Canyon at 2550 m depth, appeared to
be a partially buried wooden vessel in the 2011 sonar data but had never been visually
examined. The ROV dive yielded a surprise: a closer look at what first appeared to be a
tangled pile of wire, on closer look revealed rigging elements and degrading wood. The
site is thought to be the remnants of a mast either from a de-masting event or the mast of a
shipwreck that has not yet been located (Faulk and Elliott 2014).
Three more wrecks were investigated in the area of viosca knoll near the mouth of the
Mississippi River. All were initially discovered during oil and gas industry surveys and then
imaged with multibeam using the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology’s
(NIUST) Eagle Ray AUV in 2009 (Diercks et al. 2010). A dive on site 15429 in 480 m
depth revealed an ~ 80 m long iron hulled sailing vessel from the late 19th or early 20th
centuries with steam-assisted machinery. The vessel’s decking was gone, leading the team
to conclude the deck had been wood and the bow was home to a large and thriving colony
of Lophelia pertusa. Site 407 is a 45 m long wooden vessel resting at 280 m depth with the
exposed frames on one side and at the bow covered so extensively by anemones and sponges
it was difficult to obtain additional information. Site 359, which had been briefly investi-
gated with a deep rover submersible in 2002, was found to be a large wooden-hulled sailing
vessel 61 m-long in 400 m of water, stoutly built and remarkably intact. Initial observations
date it to the late 19th or early 20th century and suggest it may be one of the best-preserved
wooden shipwrecks yet discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. A later dive in the area of Keath-
ley Canyon in the western Gulf of Mexico found the wreck of a copper-sheathed 19th cen-
tury ship at 1330 m depth that contained a large variety of artifacts and was thought to have
the potential of being a privateer wreck (Austin 2012). After a few hours of documenting the
site, with numerous maritime archaeologists watching live from shore, the importance of
this shipwreck was clear. Private funding was secured and an interagency, multidisciplinary
team was assembled for both at sea and on shore participation, including archaeologists and
scientists from NOAA, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Bureau of Safety
and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), Texas Historical Commission, Meadows Center
for Water and the Environment, Texas State University, Texas A&M University at Galves-
ton, and OET. The following year, Nautilus was contracted to return to the site for high reso-
lution mapping and targeted excavation of key artifacts.
The 2013 mission to the site, which had been designated the “Monterrey Shipwreck”
based on Shell Oil’s leased “Monterrey Prospect,” where the wreck is located, was a 7-day
project that mapped the site and conducted the first live telepresence-enabled deep-water
archaeological excavation in US waters. The excavation recovered sixty-four diagnostic
artifacts for conservation and analysis, including ceramics, bottles, navigational instru-
ments and firearms. Telepresence provided a live, real-time link to archaeologists and his-
torians on shore, but also and importantly to a dedicated oceanographic and marine biology
team at a specially-installed ECC at Texas A&M University, Galveston, as well as close to
a hundred other scientists in the US and abroad. Integrated, multidisciplinary research has
been a hallmark of deep-water exploration on NOAA/OET expeditions, and in addition
to the archaeology, the team made a series of biological observations, collected samples,
including a previously undescribed anemone, and with push cores assessed sediment for
biological/bacteriological colonization and the spread of metals from the corroding copper
sheathing on the wreck’s hull (Fig. 5).
Telepresence also provided the international public with more than an “over the shoul-
der” look at archaeology. Similar to other missions, the scientists answered audience
questions and shared what was happening through ongoing commentary throughout the

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Fig. 5  ROV image of the copper-hulled Monterrey A shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. Image courtesy of
Meadows Center for Water and the Environment and Ocean Exploration Trust

mission. Because the project ran on a 24-h rotation, that meant a global audience was
reached and interacted with as the work spanned all time zones. The range and nature of
the questions, particularly during artifact recovery, provided what was likely the largest
interactive online experience in underwater and maritime archaeology for the public to
date. The project attracted international media exposure and a feature article in archae-
ology magazine (Hilgers 2014). At the conclusion of the documentation and excavation,
there was sufficient time for the team to examine two nearby sonar targets a few nautical
miles away. They were two other early nineteenth century shipwrecks with similar artifact
assemblages. The team believes the three wrecks, now known as Monterrey A, B and C,
were sailing and lost together, likely in a storm.
Nautilus continued exploration cruises in the Gulf of Mexico in 2014 and conducted
a series of dives on known shipwrecks from World War II. In 1942, Germany sent a fleet
of U-boats to attack American shipping along the eastern seaboard where they targeted
freighters and tankers with provisions to resupply the European allies in the war effort.
Operation drumbeat saw U-boat attacks on American shipping in key maritime shipping
corridors including off Block Island, New Jersey, North Carolina, and into the Gulf of Mex-
ico along shipping routes between Houston, New Orleans, and Florida. Numerous oil tank-
ers were sunk in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and Nautilus conducted ROV dives on two
of these, Gulfoil (at 493 m depth) and Gulfpenn (at 554 m depth) sunk by U-506 three days
apart (Brennan et al. 2015). Both of these oil tanker wrecks lie within the depth where the
deep-water coral Lophelia pertusa is able to grow, which is typically below the photic zone
down to 630 m—although a recent Okeanos dive observed the coral at 799 m (Lunden and
Jay 2012)—so both tankers are encrusted with growths of the white reef-building coral.
Alcoa Puritan, a freighter carrying a cargo of bauxite sunk by U-507, was explored later in
this expedition at a depth of 1843 m, well below the depth at which Lophelia grow. Dur-
ing these dives, multiple biologists and coral experts joined the discussion while viewing

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

the feeds from shore, helping to characterize the benthic communities using the wrecks as
artificial reefs. These shore-based observations of biological communities thriving on ship-
wrecks that lie within an otherwise sparsely populated benthic environment has reinforced
studies of the population dynamics and habitat characterization of marine ecosystems
being influenced by shipwrecks, and thereby speak to the wrecks’ site formation processes.
The main focus of the Nautilus expedition to document the wrecks of the U-boat
assault on American shipping were U-166 and SS Robert E. Lee. In late July of 1942,
U-166 entered the Gulf to lay mines off the Mississippi Delta, where it sank the pas-
senger ship Robert E. Lee. Despite also rescuing the survivors of the sinking ship, anti-
submarine escort, PC-566 sailed over the last seen location of the U-boat and dropped
depth charges. A few days later, an aircraft claimed the sinking of U-166. It was only
once the wreck of the U-boat was found in 2001 only 2 km away from the wreck of
Robert E. Lee that the kill was attributed correctly to PC-566 (Church et al. 2007).
The Nautilus expedition to these wrecks filmed the two halves of U-166, broken by the
depth charge explosion, the fairly intact wreck of Robert E. Lee, as well as the passenger
ship’s lifeboats, which lay in a pile near the wreck. Photomosaic and bathymetry sur-
veys were conducted of the sites with high definition imaging systems on the Hercules
ROV (Brennan et al. 2015). Numerous archaeologists, including those who located the
wrecks in 2001, viewed the live feed and gave input on the dives. This input became
part of the record of observations associated with the dive and provided valuable addi-
tional information about the history and site formation processes.
A final shipwreck explored by Nautilus in the Gulf was an unknown sonar target
provided by BOEM. Thought to be a large wooden wreck located during a lease block

Fig. 6  Image of ROV Hercules inspecting shipwreck site of ex-USS Peterson. Image courtesy of Ocean
Exploration Trust

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

survey, upon locating the wreck with the ROV, it turned out to be the wreck of Spru-
ance-class destroyer USS Peterson, which was sunk in 2004 as part of a training exer-
cise (Fig. 6). During the dive, veterans who had sailed on Peterson wrote into the Nauti-
lus Live website, identifying Spruance-class features before the identity of the ship had
even been confirmed by the name on the stern. This was an important telepresence-ena-
bled dive because BOEM had previously not known details about this particular wreck’s
location and condition, so the telepresence connection assisted BOEM in managing cul-
tural resources in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pacific National Marine Sanctuaries and Monuments

In 2015, both ships of exploration transited the Panama Canal and began work in the
Pacific; this was a first for Nautilus, and a return for Okeanos Explorer, which had spent
the last few field seasons mapping and exploring in Atlantic submarine canyons and
throughout unexplored regions in the Gulf of Mexico. While Okeanos Explorer moved to
the central Pacific to conduct exploration in the national monuments, Nautilus worked its
way up the west coast, conducting a series of expeditions in the National Marine Sanctuar-
ies. Recently expanded, the Pacific Sanctuaries, especially Cordell Bank and Greater Faral-
lones (formerly Gulf of the Farallones) National Marine Sanctuaries, extend across a large
swath of California’s coastline and include numerous shipwreck and archaeological sites,
including many potential sites that have not been found or documented. The first National
Marine Sanctuary was in fact established for the protection of a shipwreck site in 1975 for
the wreck of the Civil War ironclad, Monitor. Since then, the Sanctuaries have been estab-
lished in large areas of US coastal waters to protect not only shipwrecks but entire marine
environments and ecosystems. In 2015, Nautilus conducted its first work in the Sanctuar-
ies, making a series of mapping dives to the wreck of the airship USS Macon at 460 m
depth in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Expeditions in 2016 saw the ships’ greatest presence in the Sanctuaries as well as the
national marine monuments and the largest number of shipwrecks explored via telepres-
ence. Public interest in the expedition was bolstered by NOAA’s own social media presence
and outreach for both Nautilus and Okeanos Explorer missions. Early in the expedition
season, Nautilus conducted a dive on a Canadian hydrographic survey sonar target sus-
pected to be SS Coast Trader. The dive confirmed the identity of the wreck as the freighter
sunk by the Japanese submarine I-26 just over the border in Canadian waters along the
Olympic coast, the only ship sunk in Canadian Pacific waters during World War II. Listed
on NOAA’s potentially polluting wrecks (PPW) list of shipwrecks suspected to be at risk
of leaking oil, there was a concern that a spill from Coast Trader would impact the Olym-
pic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. As this dive occurred during an expedition with no
archaeologists aboard, multiple authors here participated in directing the dive on this wreck
from the ISC in Rhode Island, communicating directions to the ROV pilots on board Nau-
tilus. Because of this opportunity, we were able to evaluate the condition of the wreck and
determine that its rivets showed little to no sign of weakening due to corrosion, thus there
was little chance of oil leaking from the tanks that remained intact (Delgado et al. 2018c).
Later in the 2016 field season, Nautilus conducted exploration in the Greater Farallones
National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) with the objective of mapping and diving in undocu-
mented areas of the newly expanded parts of the sanctuary in deep water. In addition to
hard-bottom identification and subsequent coral and sponge sampling for expanding the
species list for the Sanctuary, a series of shipwreck sites within the protected area were

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

prioritized for exploration of the cultural resources for the Sanctuary (Roletto et al. 2017;
Delgado et al. 2017). Numerous shipwrecks speak to both the heavy use and hazards of
San Francisco Bay, both within the Golden Gate and outside. The first shipwreck dive was
on the wreck of SS Dorothy Wintermote, which ran aground south of Point Arena in 1938.
This wreck is at a depth of 85 m and is so close to land that viewers on Nautilus Live com-
mented that they could see the exploration vessel’s lights from their home. The final dive
of the expedition, on the way back to San Francisco, was on the wreck of the historic steam
yacht, SS Ituna, which sank in a storm in 1920. Due to its shallow depth and exposure to
warmer waters and biological activity, Ituna is corroding badly and heavily encrusted with
invertebrates as the wreck structure acts as an artificial reef for anemones (Roletto et al.
2017).
As articles later in this volume detail, Nautilus conducted two ROV dives on the wreck
of USS Independence during this expedition. The World War II aircraft carrier was a float-
ing target at Bikini Atoll during the first two atomic test blasts in 1946, towed to San Fran-
cisco for decontamination testing the following year, and then scuttled off the Farallon
Islands in 1951. At a depth of 829 m, the wreck is located at the very northern edge of the
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, but due to proximity, is managed by GFNMS,
which is fitting as the wreck is certainly part of the San Francisco Bay Area’s maritime
cultural landscape. The discovery of Independence wreck in 2015 by an AUV sonar survey
was well publicized, including a special issue of this journal (see Delgado et al. 2016a, b),
so by the time of the Nautilus expedition, the buzz about the shipwreck had built, includ-
ing anticipation regarding the formerly “radioactive” ship from Bikini. As such, and given
the opportunity provided by the Nautilus Live platform, the messaging of the shipwreck
investigation was steered toward responsible stewardship of the site within the Sanctuary
and openly and transparently assessing whether the wreck posed any radiological risk. The
consulting nuclear scientists who participated in the mission had briefed the team that there
was no risk, even if the ROV landed or collected samples, but it was imperative that this
be demonstrated, something that telepresence uniquely provided the opportunity to do.
Based on the insulating properties of water and the half-lives of the isotopes involved, no
radiation levels above those ambient in seawater were expected. Divers have been work-
ing in and around the shipwrecks still at Bikini Atoll at the site of the nuclear detonations
for decades with no problems. Scientists from UC Berkeley’s RadWatch team participated
in the expedition, and took readings for radioactive materials and isotopes on the ROVs
throughout the mission. The telepresence capability of Nautilus allowed the scientists and
archaeologists on board to engage in real time with the public, with complete transpar-
ency about what was being seen and done at and around the Independence wreck, and with
the capability of maintaining a message of site conservation and management through the
Sanctuaries. This was a rare opportunity in archaeology for such direct involvement with
the audience. The website and social media statistics for these two dives are discussed in
the next section.
While Nautilus explored the west coast Sanctuaries, Okeanos Explorer worked in the
central and western Pacific and had the opportunity to explore several shipwrecks and an
aircraft during their 3-year CAPSTONE expeditions. The multi-year effort focused on col-
lecting baseline information on deep-water regions of US marine protected areas. Okeanos
Explorer’s track to remote areas of the Pacific touched on vessels and aircraft lost in major
campaigns and actions of WWII and others important to US history. In 2015, Okeanos
Explorer conducted a dive on the WWI era S-Class submarine, S-19, near Oahu, scuttled
by the Navy in 1938. With a known date of sinking, coral scientists participating from
shore were interested in the site as hard bottom habitat for deep coral colonization. The

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

following year, while working just offshore of Wake Atoll in the Wake Atoll Unit of the
Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, Okeanos Explorer searched for the
Japanese destroyer, Hayate, sunk in December 1941. Hayate was the first major Japanese
surface vessel sunk by American forces at the outset of the war. Several promising sonar
targets were selected to dive on with the ROVs Deep Discoverer and Seirios. One target,
suspected to be Hayate, turned out to instead be the Japanese water carrier, Amakasu Maru
No. 1, which was sunk by a US submarine in December 1942 and is one example of the
numerous merchant ships targeted during World War II to slow the war effort by both
sides. With Japanese characters visible on the stern, telepresence once again demonstrated
its value when a Japanese scientist translated the name of the ship and within minutes par-
ticipating historians and archaeologists were able to piece together the vessels history and
demise while on site (Cantelas et al. 2017).
Late in WWII, Tinian Island, now part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, became a major airbase for the B-29 Superfortress. Historical records document
numerous B-29′s crashing in the deep water of Saipan Channel, a narrow three mile wide
gap separating Tinian and Saipan. Following an intense effort to map and analyze data
from part of the channel to find one of these sites, Deep Discoverer identified a target as
a crashed B-29 aircraft and associated debris trail. During this dive, a family member of a
missing airman from a crashed B-29 watched the live feed, although this specific aircraft
was not identified (Cantelas et al. 2017; Lickliter-Mundon et al. 2016). Rounding out the
year while conducting ROV engineering dives off Pearl Harbor, south of Oahu, numerous
items of unexploded ordinance were found including 500 lb bombs. The area was used for
disposal by the armed forces during and after WWII. A brief revisit was made to S-19 and
to a sonar target identified as the Royal Taipan by the name on its stern. Archaeologists
participating from multiple locations on shore soon discovered the wooden vessel was a
WWII auxiliary motor minesweeper, YMS 470, built in 1944 and after a long and varied
career, was intentionally sunk in 1996. The final dive of the year explored the wreck of
a Japanese midget submarine on December 7, the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor
attack. This submarine was sunk by USS Ward just outside the entrance to the harbor and
marked the first shot fired by the United States in World War II (Delgado et al. 2016a, b).
This dive occurred in the morning of December 7 and the timeline of the attack, includ-
ing the moment of the Ward’s opening shot, were marked by the on board science team in
commemoration along a live audience of over 1.5 million people.
The following year, Nautilus dove on the wreck of the submarine USS Bugara, which
sank while under tow off Cape Flattery, WA in 1971 on its way to be sunk as a target, and
Okeanos Explorer dove on USS Baltimore, the wreck of a late nineteenth-century cruiser
that had served in the Spanish-American War and World War I, and was scuttled off Pearl
Harbor in 1944. Numerous archaeologists tuned into the Baltimore dive from across the
country, lending guidance and expertise to the documentation of the cruiser’s wreck (Van
Tilburg et al. 2018). For the Bugara dive, a team assembled at the ISC at URI to lead the
dive. Joining the team was the former captain, LCRD Ed Ettner, brought back to his ship
59 years later, connected live through the satellite connection from Nautilus (Guerrero and
Phil 2018). This dive is chronicled later in this volume.
Okeanos Explorer then transited the Panama Canal and carried out a 2017 mission in
the Gulf of Mexico where it conducted dives on two sonar targets identified by BOEM
archaeologists as possible shipwrecks. The first target was found to be a 19th century ship-
wreck, immediately identifiable by the copper sheathing preserved in the outline of the
ship’s hull similar to that found on two of the Monterrey wrecks that both Okeanos and
Nautilus made dives to between 2012 and 2014 (Irion 2017). Notable features of the wreck

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Fig. 7  ROV image of a sunken container carrying washing machines, located in the Gulf of Mexico. Image
courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

include a large sheet anchor amidships and lead draft marks—numbers 12 and 13—ham-
mered into the stem post at the bow. Preliminary analysis of the hull and artifacts on the
site by the variety of archaeologists tuning into the live feed that this wreck is that of an
early-to-mid nineteenth century, three-masted, square-rigged merchant ship. The second
sonar target was a large reflection with a scatter of what appeared to be debris extending
out from one end. Upon visual inspection, this target turned out to be a sunken container
that had fallen off a cargo ship at some point in the recent past. Spilling out of the broken
container was a shipment of washing machines (Fig. 7). While not the historic shipwreck
the large number of archaeologists who were watching from various locations ashore were
hoping the target would be, the documentation of sunken material in the deep Gulf and
hard ground for habitat in the future remain objectives of exploratory deep water missions.
Lastly, following the discovery of the battleship USS Indianapolis in September 2017
by Paul Allen’s R/V Petrel, a live event from the ship was televised to PBS. During this
live broadcast, a dive to the shipwreck was shown. While not a true telepresence-enabled
expedition in the sense that scientists were not participating remotely, nor was there an
interactive component by audiences during the live event, the capability of the live pres-
entation from Petrel suggests a capability that could be utilized for future telepresence-
enabled missions.

Shipwrecks and the Public Landscape of the National Marine

Sanctuaries

The coasts of the United States are the most populated areas and the coastal waters the
most heavily used and trafficked. These coastal waterways can be viewed as the exit ramps
from maritime shipping lanes heading into ports. Additionally, Americans use and expe-
rience the waters along the shoreline constantly and in numerous varied ways. Many of

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

the country’s National Marine Sanctuaries, especially those off California, encompass such
areas of heavy use such as off San Francisco and Los Angeles. Therefore, these Sanctuar-
ies are not only protecting marine ecosystems, but also preserving a public landscape and
history of our use of these waters. While this may be the case, most Americans know little
about what lies offshore. One of the greatest capabilities that telepresence provides is the
ability to bring the deep ocean to the public, which has been done to great extents by both
ships of exploration, through the websites of Ocean Explorer and Nautilus Live. These
sites are the internet platforms where the live video from the ROVs plays live during expe-
ditions. These sites, plus extensive social media presences and other outreach activities, are
live portals to the deep ocean for everyone.
We will use the Greater Farallones Nautilus expedition as an example of the reach of
these outreach platforms here. This expedition in particular was important because it came
following the expansion of the Sanctuary from a 1282 square mile area outside San Fran-
cisco Bay to encompass 3295 square miles by adding a large swath of northern California
coast to the north of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary in 2015. The following sum-
mer’s expedition was the first exploration in these newly added areas, including the multi-
beam sonar mapping of the deeper areas. These protected waters comprise a public land-
scape extending offshore, making systematic and accessible exploration of them important.
As mentioned previously, some of the work during this expedition focused on some
of the shipwrecks in the Sanctuary: SS Dorothy Wintermote, USS Independence, and SS
Ituna. The first two of these had never been seen before. This work followed other work on
shipwrecks outside the Golden Gate and around the Farallones, including the wrecks of SS
City of Rio de Janeiro and Conestoga (Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 2014; Del-
gado and Schwemmer 2016). All of this work, and the media attention and outreach efforts
it generated, adds to the public awareness and understanding of the cultural resources off-
shore. For the 2016 expedition, the telepresence capability of Nautilus and the outreach
platform of Nautilus Live allowed for further live dissemination of the research, which
included live interactions with schools, museums and aquariums, and giving thousands of
the worldwide public a front row seat through the live video feeds while providing sci-
ence interpretation and answering questions submitted online. Table 1 shows the Nauti-
lus Live and social media data for the 2 days of USS Independence dives along with the
dives on SS Coast Trader and USS Bugara. The excitement that built for the Independence
dives is apparent in these numbers, which was bolstered by the Sanctuaries’ own outreach
activities, which included joint events with OET at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
The viewership for Nautilus Live grew organically year to year since the site’s inception in

Table 1  Nautilus Live website viewership statistics during dives on three shipwrecks
Date of dive Total Nau- Total NL Facebook Twitter
tilus Live unique impressions impressions
pageviews users

SS Coast Trader June 2, 2016 31,705 6354 52,500 22,965

USS Independence August 22, 2016 91,095 23,885
1,071,213 318,396
USS Independence August 26, 2016 38,692 9438
USS Bugara September 25, 2017 19,821 4473 165,828 65,534

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

2010 and the growth of the social media impressions between the wreck dives in 2016 and
2017 also indicates this.
As later papers in this issue detail, the live exploration of Independence and Bugara pre-
sented an opportunity to refine the messaging of maritime archaeology to a public audience
tied to the National Marine Sanctuaries, as Bugara lies within the Olympic Coast NMS.
Maritime archaeology in the public eye is often blurred by the allure of treasure hunting.
Tailoring the messaging of exploration live to the audience, and giving them access to the
onboard scientists through the ability to ask questions through the Nautilus Live website,
allowed for an interactive discussion about what we were doing and why. We were able to
recount the archaeology of the Cold War from both the Bikini Atoll tests and the service
history of Bugara through these two wrecks and what can be learned from studying the
modern wreck sites, tied to the biology and marine environments today, all of which is part
of the public landscape of the National Marine Sanctuaries.

Telepresence and the Archaeology of Discard

Telepresence-enabled exploration provides a new avenue for archaeology as it allows us

to investigate the recent past on a broader scale, as opposed to expeditions that target a
specific wreck. What has come to light from recent work is an ability to find and docu-
ment—sometimes accidentally—some of the more mundane features of human activity in
a maritime world. For centuries, mankind has used the ocean as an ‘out of sight, out of
mind’ place to dispose of unwanted or old material. As archaeology expands into a new
paradigm of exploratory projects, such ‘junk’ becomes part of the archaeological record,
a component of human use of the oceans, and which contributes to anthropogenic impacts
on the marine environment. As such, it is an archaeology of discard. This term has been
previously applied to terrestrial sites and studies of refuse, middens, or deposits of lithic
debitage from stone tool manufacture (e.g. Holdaway et al. 2004). Arnshav (2014) recently
applied the study of garbology to marine debris and the maritime cultural landscape, which
had previously not been included in the study of trash, again likely due to the fact that peo-
ple do not live in the sea and the material remains out of our way.
Nevertheless, we have an impact on the seabed and marine environment with our
actions and our disposed material. Arnshav applies the term ‘Seafloorscape’ to avoid the
implication of a visitable area, as the seafloor is uninhabitable to humans (214: 3). The
footprint of past and contemporary civilization is represented here by shipwrecks but also
by such things as trawl scars, constructed works such as oil rigs, and of course garbage
and debris from human activities. Archaeologically, human actions are represented on the
seafloorscape differently than in the layered deposits typically encountered in archaeol-
ogy. The seabed acts as a two-dimensional palimpsest upon which the human actions in
a three-dimensional world are imprinted and can also be erased through sedimentation,
bottom trawl fishing, or other such actions. Trawl impacts to shipwreck sites has been well
documented through numerous telepresence-enabled missions as substantial (Brennan
et al. 2012, 2013, 2016) as well as physical debris of nets, rollers, and floats hung up on
wrecks like Coast Trader (Delgado et al. 2018c) and Independence (Delgado et al. 2018a).
Three mediums of human action can be represented on a single seabed surface-submarine,
surface, and aerial-and such an approach may be taken to World War II and later naval
battlefields where action took place underwater, on the sea surface, and in the skies. The

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Fig. 8  ROV image of a group of 1970 s soda cans observed off southern California. Image courtesy of
Ocean Exploration Trust

physical remains of all such actions upon a single parcel of sea would be imprinted on the
respective single area of seabed below.
The idea of garbology as archaeology, especially in a maritime context as Arnshav
discusses, becomes more realistic with time. In approaching the archaeology of discard,
the majority of the material was disposed of accidentally, for example, the container
with washing machines located by Okeanos Explorer in the Gulf of Mexico. Another
example is a dive with ROVs Hercules and Argus from Nautilus off southern California
that came across a group of soda cans in a small pile wedged into a crevasse in a rock
outcrop that date to the early 1970 s (Fig. 8). Due to their grouping, it appeared the
cans fell overboard in some sort of degradable package that sank them together. Even
these examples of modern trash are nearing the 50 year mark. Traditionally, plastic has
not been considered ‘archaeological’, but as Arnshav (2014) points out, marine debris
reflects humanity’s use of the sea. This is apparent in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
that has recently been drawing attention and concern. While microplastics are a large
component (94% of the pieces) and a concern for wildlife, the majority of the material
by tonnage in this floating patch of plastic is actually discarded fishing gear (Parker
2018)-like that which we see hung up on shipwrecks-including nets, floats and rollers.
Many shipwrecks also fall into the category of accidental losses, like those that sink in
storms or run aground; the foundering of USS Bugara is one example.
With increasing areas and depths of exploration, the idea of marine ‘disposal’ is
revealed to have been nothing more than a convenient illusion (Arnshav 2014). Unlike
accidents, disposal and abandonment are acts of intent (Richards 2013; Lenihan 2013).
The archaeology of discard becomes further apparent with extended forays into the
marine environment that deep-water exploration provides, and we get a glimpse into
the mindset that led to disposing of dangerous, unwanted, or unsavory materials into
the deep. Nowhere is this mindset more apparent than with the irradiated shipwrecks of
the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests. The 78 ships moored at Bikini Atoll during the Able test

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

blast in July 1946 (and 75 during the Baker test later that month, sans the three that sank
from Able) were not a collection of only derelict, outdated ships ready for retirement or
scrap; they included newer ships and the intent following the blasts was to reuse those
that did not sink (Lenihan 2013). A total of 16 ships sank during the two blasts, but
another 61 were determined to be unfit for further use and disposed of in a number of
locations either by scuttling or sunk as test ships (Delgado et al. 1991). These included
USS New York and USS Nevada off Pearl Harbor; USS Crittenden, USS Gasconade and
USS Skate off southern California; and finally USS Independence off San Francisco in
1951. Few of these have been located since their sinking.
As we mentioned earlier, and as is further discussed later in this volume by Delgado
and colleagues, Independence was also filled with 55-gallon drums of low-level radioactive
waste in concrete before its sinking, therefore not only being discarded itself, but used as a
vehicle for such. The 2016 Nautilus mission to Independence observed a few of these bar-
rels, including latex gloves and concrete (Fig. 9), as well as the remains of two aircraft still
on board, knocked into the hangers from the deck where they had been positioned during
the test blasts (Delgado et al. 2018a), suggesting behavior in the disposal of these ships that
was intended to remove the ships from public sight as quickly as possible. The telepres-
ence-enabled mission to Independence in 2016 not only allowed for shore-side participa-
tion from scientists, but like the Monterrey wreck excavation, the ROV investigation of the
formerly radioactive ship was done transparently in real time so viewers could understand
the work being done and what lie just offshore in the public landscape off San Francisco.
While not radioactive, other derelict warships were sunk as targets at other times, as would
have been the fate of USS Bugara had it not sank while under tow. USS Baltimore was
sunk off Pearl Harbor in 1944 after decades of service and USS Peterson, more recently,
was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in 2004 as a test for the new Zumwalt-class DD(X)
destroyer. Expeditions of ships of exploration, like Nautilus and Okeanos Explorer, have
had the opportunities to locate and document such relics of our maritime history through

Fig. 9  ROV image of 55-gallon drums inside USS Independence showing latex gloves, among the low-level
radioactive waste inside, visible after the barrels corroded. Image courtesy of Ocean Exploration Trust

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 Journal of Maritime Archaeology

Fig. 10  ROV image of anti-aircraft gun on USS Independence showing a snagged trawl net in the back-
ground. Image courtesy of Ocean Exploration Trust

the ability to conduct exploratory missions with the expertise available to appropriately
respond to unplanned discoveries.
The paradigm of telepresence-enabled ocean exploration is broader than the scientific
missions of the past have traditionally been. Instead of targeting a specific research question
with hand-picked scientists of certain specialties, the ships of exploration focus on targeted
areas selected by the community based on workshops where any number of discoveries
and observations are possible. This only functions because of the telepresence capability
that allows scientists of any specialty access to the live expedition, and gives the at-sea
team access to their input and knowledge. In regard to shipwreck exploration, a new phase
of maritime archaeology is organically growing as research questions can expand beyond
a targeted mission to “map Titanic” to one such as documenting the cultural landscape of
the Gulf of Mexico. Exploration, driven by the capacity to connect people through telep-
resence, provides the opportunity for systematic, regional work, and expands the potential
of research beyond the hypotheses of a single scientist or group. We are seeing a paradigm
shift among the archaeological community from an attitude of “why are we wasting time
zooming in on biology on a wreck site?” to interdisciplinary coordination to include bio-
logical research as an integral part of site formation processes at shipwreck sites, as an
example. Due to the cost of deep sea exploration, the objective is to use time on the seabed
efficiently, thereby approaching shipwrecks as both archaeological sites and time-stamped
deposits as hard bottom for colonization. Telepresence provides the opportunity to bring
an unlimited number of scientists, specialists, and researchers to the sites, maximizing the
information that can be obtained from every minute of bottom time. Through such mis-
sions, the telepresence-enabled exploration of the deep sea, maritime archaeology is also
beginning to document a broader view of the impact on the planet by mankind’s use and
disposal of materials. There are trawl nets hung up on USS Independence and SS Coast
Trader (Fig. 10), modern trash on Titanic, soda and beer cans on ancient shipwrecks in the
Mediterranean, and entire shipping containers in the deep sea. A larger picture of humani-
ty’s material impacts on the ocean is part of archaeology’s place in ocean exploration. This

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Journal of Maritime Archaeology

is where the deep frontier of maritime archaeology is headed, and telepresence is bringing
everyone there.

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