Word: silting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Britain, a group of marine archaeologists has more to work with. When they located the 16th century warship Mary Rose (which sank in 45 ft. of water off Portsmouth in 1545) and raised it in 1982, half of the hull had been buried under protective silt for centuries. The waterlogged structure, part of which had the consistency of wet cardboard, was moved into dry dock at the Portsmouth Naval Base, and has since been sprayed constantly with a cold-water mist to keep the wood from disintegrating in the air. This treatment will continue for another three years, after which...
...highlight of the mission for Chief Archaeologist Scott Sledge, 38, was the discovery of a brass regimental facing plate, a shieldlike ornament from a soldier's bearskin cap, with the word royal clearly distinguishable. After gingerly brushing away some silt, Sledge recalls, "I came across something shiny right underneath." It was embedded in the surrounding coral, which he had to chip away carefully. Just as he was about to give up for the day and return to the surface, the plate loosened, and he was able to slide it out of the coral in perfect condition. Says Sledge: "That...
...miles, it took Fisher until 1985--and a total of 6,500 magnetometer hits--to identify what he calls the "mother lode," the ; main body of the ship's cargo. Even then, retrieving the treasure was difficult. The deeper waters off the Florida Keys are murky, the bottom heavily silted. Again, technology provided the solution. Several years earlier, Feild had devised a huge pair of fittings that resemble and are called mailboxes, and placed them over the propellers of one of Fisher's tugs, in effect directing the ship's backwash straight down and forming a clear vertical column...
Archaeologists are particularly concerned about the buried remains of wooden hulls, the part of the ship that has sunk into the seabed or been covered by drifting sand or silt and thus preserved. These remnants, which deteriorate rapidly when exposed to the open sea, provide a wealth of information to scientists. Says Richard Steffy, an INA ship reconstructor: "Ships were the most complex structures made by these societies. When you look at the remains of a ship, you're looking at a very high degree of technology within that period." Working with a crew of assistants and archaeologists, Steffy sketches...
...fees of up to $50,000 a mile, McIntyre has worked with wealthy landowners, anglers and developers to rehabilitate streams that became barren of trout, whose eggs die if covered with silt. His firm, Timberline Reclamations, based in Bozeman, Mont., has worked on 130 projects in 17 states and has attracted a small school of competitors with names like InterFluve and Stream Team...