Sunken Treasure under Lake El'gygytgyn

From Nature, Frontier Scientist: Sunken Treasure under Lake El'gygytgyn
Deep under a frozen lake in Siberia, Russia, lies a researcher's gold: an astounding record of past climates preserved in untouched layers of lake bed sediment. In 2009 an international team of scientists headed to Lake El'gygytgyn (pronounced El'geegitgin). They perched specialized drilling equipment atop the icy lake surface and drilled down. At the bottom of the lake as much as a quarter mile (1,312 feet) of sediment awaited them atop the site of a monster meteorite impact. That sediment, withdrawn in cores and shipped to labs in Germany for close scrutiny, represents a continuous record of past Arctic conditions going back 3.6 million years. The more complete picture of paleoclimate it forms will help scientists understand how and why Earth's climate changed in the past, and give them better tools for predicting the future.

An international team of scientists from the United States, Russia, Germany and Austria undertook this geological drilling project as part of the International Continental Drilling Program. The U.S. research team was led by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and included doctoral student Kenna Wilkie and PolarTREC teacher Tim Martin. The diverse team of scientists faced no easy task- six months of hard work in Northeast Siberia during winter. The team hired converted tanks to pull drilling platforms to the extremely remote lake (62 miles north of the Arctic Circle), chartered temperature-controlled cargo planes to safely move the sediment core samples back to specialized labs, and lived in temporary housing atop ice. It was all so they could collect excellent samples: the longest sediment core samples retrieved from the Arctic region. Their successful expedition showcased international scientific cooperation and provided one-of-a-kind data for the scientific community. The project was funded in part by the National Science Foundation: the NSF Division of Earth Sciences and also the NSF Office of Polar Programs.

It is said that location is everything, and that is certainly true for Lake El'gygytgyn (El'geegitgin). The lake, 7.5 miles wide and 558 feet deep, rests in the middle of a large impact crater formed 3.6 million years ago when a meteor slammed into the Earth. The region in present-day Russia it struck was part of Beringia, the great land bridge which spanned the ocean between Asia and North America. The area was never glaciated. Accordingly, it wasn't scoured or covered over by crawling ice. Ever since the meteorite struck, the basin where Lake El'gygytgyn rests has accumulated sediment: drifts of pollen, decomposing plant matter, ash from fires or volcanic activity, and other debris. With these samples, the scientists can measure radioactivity, magnetic and sonic properties, electrical resistance, and much more. Like vertical timelines, the striated sediment cores withdrawn from the lake-bed are capable of telling stories about the world. Lake El'gygytgyn is a gem, holding an undisturbed, continuous uninterrupted sediment sequence which has accumulated for the past 3.6 million years.

"Earth's warm and cold cycles over the past one million years varied every 100,000 years at times. Before that, however, climate change, especially in high latitudes, varied over 41,000- and 23,000-year cycles. The record from Lake E will show the ramp up to that type of change in the Earth's climate." ~ Julie Brigham-Grette*

Today Siberia and the Arctic are notoriously cold. The meteorite struck during the warmer Pliocene era, when mammoths, giant ground sloths, and early hominins still roamed the earth. During the Pliocene the area supported a heavily forested ecosystem. Hopefully through research we can fully understand the causes of Arctic climate shift toward a cold permafrost ecosystem some 2 two 3 million years ago. What influences forced such a dramatic change? Understanding that, and comparing past Arctic climate change to paleoclimate records of change that occurred in the rest of the world, will help form more complete climate models. Sediment cores, marine sediment cores, and ice cores all contribute data to an increasingly complex climate map. Climate modeling can help us systematically analyze the past, and predict what will happen as the present-day global climate continues to shift.

Our ability to inform policy makers about global/regional climate and related environmental change and its uncertainties depends on our capacity to understand the role of the Arctic region in modulating past periods of change under different climate forcing conditions. ~ Julie Brigham-Grette**

While ice cores collected from the Greenland Ice Sheet are long enough to detail about 110,000 years, the sediment cores from Lake El'gygytgyn (El'geegitgin) map 30x more... nearly 3,600,000 years. The undivided core is nearly 1165 feet long (similar to the Empire State Building's top floor at 1250 feet). It is an unprecedented time-continuous terrestrial record of Arctic conditions. I31 feet of core is from the warm middle Pliocene era- when there was no permanent sea ice in the Arctic Ocean- which may represent an analog for the climate not-too-distant humans will face.

While most of the core samples were drilled from the lake bed, an additional borehole was cored at the western edge of Lake El'gygytgyn. The borehole was fitted with instruments to monitor ground temperatures and will continue to contribute to the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost.

Supreme Court Declines to Enter Sunken Treasure Dispute

From KSBY.com: Supreme Court Declines to Enter Sunken Treasure Dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has again steered clear of an international dispute over the treasure salvaged from a 19th century shipwreck.

The justices on Monday rejected appeals from the deep-sea explorers who found the wreck of a sunken Spanish galleon and Peru, both of which objected to court rulings awarding the treasure to Spain. In February, Spain took possession of 17 tons of silver coins and other artifacts estimated in 2007 to be worth $500 million.

Odyssey Marine Exploration has lost every round in federal court in its effort to hold on to the treasure it found when it discovered the wreck, believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, off Portugal's Atlantic coast near the Straits of Gibraltar. The ship was sunk in 1804.

Court OKs Kent man's audacious high-tech venture to recover Alaska's sunken treasure

From Puget Sound Business Journal: Court OKs Kent man's audacious high-tech venture to recover Alaska's sunken treasure

More than a century after the steamship Islander sank near Juneau with a purported cargo of Alaskan gold, a Kent man hopes to cash in on his two-decade-long quest to retrieve the treasure.

Theodore Jaynes, 72, a former professional diver, got a federal judge last month to approve his latest plan to recover the gold, clearing the way to aim high-tech imaging gear at the sunken vessel this summer.

"He is wary and excited, enthused," said Jaynes' attorney, Jed Powell, with the Seattle firm of Cairncross & Hempelmann. "One way or the other, we're going to know the answer to the SS Islander story."

That would be the answer to the question of how much gold, if any, lies under 175 feet of frigid water in Lynn Canal, south of Juneau. Top-end estimates are that the Islander sank with 480,000 ounces of gold, which at current prices of about $1,500 an ounce would be worth about $720 million.

Or there could be nothing.

"Some people say none, some say a lot," Powell said. "Sworn affidavits from 1902, from people on the docks in Skagway - some of them said there were tons of gold, others saw there were boxes of gold."

"The company's purser said there wasn't anything on the boat," Powell added, "just a little bit in his safe."

While nobody's sure what is down there, that hasn't stopped people - a lot of people - from trying to find it.

If Jaynes turns out to be the one who finally succeeds, he would complete a major chapter in the saga of the Klondike Gold Rush, an event that helped turn Seattle into the business capital of the Pacific Northwest. After an 1896 gold find in Alaska's Klondike, some 70,000 "Stampeders" passed through Seattle, buying supplies and frequenting hotels while waiting to sail north. Seattle's population tripled in less than 15 years, to 240,000 by 1910.

Amid the thousands of lives lost to the Klondike gold frenzy were those of 65 passengers and crew of the Canadian Pacific Navigation Co.'s SS Islander. Heading south from the gold gateway port of Skagway, the 240-foot steamer hit an iceberg and sank on Aug. 15, 1901, more than a decade before the same fate befell the Titanic.

Numerous expeditions have attempted to find the Islander's lost gold. In 1934, a monumental effort partly funded by Weyerhaeuser Timber Co. President Norton Clapp raised the ship's hull, but little gold was found - possibly because the prize remained in a bow section that had broken off and was still on the bottom.

"If it's there, it's the biggest ever," said Powell, referring to the potential treasure. "A lot of people have lost their fortunes on this thing over the years."

Jaynes created a company called Ocean Mar Inc. and assembled a team of fellow divers and a vessel to lift the gold. But on arrival in Juneau in 1996, Jaynes was served by a restraining order by a federal marshal, obtained by a rival salvage company, Yukon Recovery, of Puyallup.

From that point on, Jaynes spent more time in court and his lawyers' offices than underwater, until April 30, when a "Third Amended Plan" from U.S. District Court of Alaska approved the updated details on how his Ocean Mar Inc. will proceed to pull up the gold. Part of the legal proceedings has been to work out a contractual arrangement with the Salvage Association of London, an organization that brokers settlements between insurers and salvage companies such as Ocean Mar. Under that contract, Powell said, Ocean Mar will pay the Salvage Association 25 percent of the value of any "insured gold" recovered, to reimburse any insurers who might have previously paid claims on the gold. Ocean Mar's recovery plan is being kept away from the public view by the court, reflecting the company's stated intent in its court filing that the specifics should be "confidential - extremely confidential." A 2010 court document suggests that Ocean Mar will use sonar equipment and software that also has been deployed by the Navy "to 'see' through the seabed material for a number of inches, in order to locate the gold bars." Powell suggested that technology advances since 1996 should make the mapping more precise. The court papers said Ocean Mar had been in talks with Science Application International Corp., a major Pentagon contractor with a branch in Bremerton, to conduct the mapping. But the SAIC deal never came to fruition, Powell said, and Ocean Mar is still negotiating with contractors.

"For 15 or so years, Ted Jaynes and Ocean Mar have been trying to put together the science to actually do the salvage," he said. "They have a much greater ability to go down and see what's on the bottom." Powell declined to make Jaynes available for comment, and Jaynes did not respond to other attempts to contact him.

Some of Jaynes' 40-year diving career was in France, working for a Marseilles company called Intersub, or International Submarine Services.

While Powell declined to say how much money is available to pay for the salvage operation, he said the costs "could be" $3 million to $4 million.

Powell said the undisclosed lender is a "financial entity," but not a bank. He declined to say if the entity is based in the U.S. or overseas.

Over the years, Jaynes has attracted investors to his treasure hunt. Undisclosed investors in a Jaynes-led entity called Islander Bullion Partners LLC are entitled to divvy up approximately $147 million in potential proceeds from the Islander's gold, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission notice dated May 15.

Islander Bullion Partners is not the only investor group. Another set of backers, called Islander Partners LP, dates back to the 1990s. According to another recent SEC filing, an entity called Douglas Island Group LLC is entitled to about 22 percent of the Islander Bullion Partners' payoff.

Douglas Island, off Juneau, is where Capt. H.R. Foote back in 1901 had hoped to ground the distressed Islander after it hit the iceberg to keep the ship from sinking.

He didn't make it.

Back to our regularly scheduled blogging

Visiting relative  has left, traveling has done, and I'm ready to devote myself to this blog again.

So thanks for  your patience!

I crave your indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days.


My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.


So I'll be posting back here Thursday.


Thanks for your patience.

American Civil War Center May Calendar

From Richmond.com: Where am I RVA? American Civil War Center
ichmond's big chapter in the battlefield history of the Civil War began its 150th anniversary commemoration on May 9 and continues with 60 days of events.

One of the more unique places to learn about the Civil War can be found at the American Civil War Center at historic Tredegar Iron Works.

The Center opened October 7, 2006, and is considered to be place to learn about the Civil War -- its causes, its course, and its legacies, according to its website. "It is a place where the people who decided America’s future tell their stories. Here, all of the main stories -- Union, Confederate, and African American -- get significant space together for the first time."

The Center is located on 8 acres on the historic James River in downtown Richmond. A National Historic Landmark, the Tredegar site contains five surviving buildings illustrating the Iron Works era. The National Park Service operates the Richmond National Battlefield Park Visitor Center located in the restored Pattern Building.

Admission is $8, children are $4 and free to children 5 and under.

Highlighted upcoming events at the Center:

Fire! Rifle Musket Program - May 19 & May 27: Join a costumed historical interpreter for a discussion and demonstration of the primary infantry weapon of the American Civil War. Learn how a Civil War soldier trained and fought with the rifle musket.

Men of Iron - May 20: Before, during and after the Civil War, the Tredegar Iron Works was an important industrial complex. In peacetime, it supplied the vast expansion of the railroad industry; in war it produced the largest number of cannon in the Confederacy. Guests are treated to a tour of the grounds learning about the manufacturing of iron, the people who worked here, the historic buildings on site and Tredegar owner Joseph Reid Anderson.

Meet the Curator, Meet the Artifact! - May 26: Throughout the year, artifacts in our In the Cause of Liberty exhibition change to showcase remarkable pieces that have been shared with us from private collections and renowned museums around the country. Join Randy Klemm, Curator for the American Civil War Center as he shares these remarkable pieces with you.

WWII-era battleship USS Iowa being refitted to move to new home as naval museum in California

From Yahoo News: WWII-era battleship USS Iowa being refitted to move to new home as naval museum in California

RICHMOND, Calif. - Firing its 16-inch (41-centimetre) guns in the Arabian Sea, the U.S.S. Iowa shuddered. As the sky turned orange, a blast of heat from the massive guns washed over the battleship. This was the Iowa of the late 1980s, at the end of its active duty, as it escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq war.

Some 25 years later, following years of aging in the San Francisco Bay area's "mothball fleet," the 887-foot (270-meter) long ship that once carried President Franklin Roosevelt to a World War II summit to meet with Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Chiang Kai Shek is coming to life once again as it is being prepared for what is most likely its final voyage.

Not far from where "Rosie the Riveter" female workers built ships in the 1940s at the Port of Richmond, the 58,000-ton battlewagon is undergoing restoration for towing May 20 through the Golden Gate, then several hundred miles (kilometres) south to the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. There it is to be transformed into an interactive naval museum.

On May 1, ownership of the Iowa was officially transferred from the U.S. Navy to the Pacific Battleship Center, the non-profit organization that has been restoring the boat for its new mission.

"This means everything — it's going to be saved," said John Wolfinbarger, 87, of San Martin, California, who served aboard the USS Iowa for almost two years in the mid-1940s and recently began giving public tours of the old ship during repairs here.

"When it gets down to San Pedro, it's going to be the happiest day of my life, like coming home!" he said, watching the mast being reattached.

For the past decade, the lead ship of her battleship class known as "The Big Stick" has sat in the cold and fog, anchored with other mothballed ships in nearby Suisun Bay. This spring, workers began scrubbing and painting the Iowa's exterior, replacing the teak deck and reattaching the mast in preparation for the museum commissioning on July 4.

Jonathan Williams, executive officer of Pacific Battleship Group, has been overseeing the project, which will exceed $4 million upon completion. Williams credited his dedicated staff and volunteers, along with the financial contributions from the state of Iowa, for making the restoration possible.

"The U.S. Navy, MARAD (United States Maritime Administration) and the crew that mothballed the battleship over the past 22 years did an excellent job and kept the heart and soul of Iowa alive," said Williams.
"Things are on track and we are following our schedule as planned," he added. "We are trying to make sure nothing is missed as the process is complex."

The fast Iowa-class battleships, ordered by the Navy in 1939 and 1940, could travel at a speed of 33 knots (61 kph). The Iowa, first commissioned in 1943 and again in 1951 and 1984, saw duty in World War II and the Korean War. It took part in escorting tankers in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war before being decommissioned in 1990.

During World War II, when transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, the ship shelled beachheads at Kwajalein and Eniwetok in advance of Allied amphibious landings and screened aircraft carriers operating in the Marshall Islands.

It was one of two ships of its class camouflaged during World War II— and it also was the only one with a bathtub, which was put in for President Roosevelt. The Iowa also served as the Third Fleet flagship, flying Adm. William F. Halsey's flag as it accompanied the Missouri at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay.
A dark part of the ship's history took place in 1989, when 47 sailors were killed in an explosion in the No. 2 gun turret. After the blast, the Navy alleged a crewmember caused the explosion as a result of a failed relationship with another male crewmember. A follow-up investigation found the explosion was most likely the result of human error.

Most visitors are immediately drawn to the sight and firepower of the Iowa's nine 16-inch guns, which could send an armour-piercing shell the weight of a small car 24 miles (39 kilometres). When the ship was modernized during the 1980s, it was outfitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Phalanx gun mounts. It was also one of the first ships outfitted to carry a drone for reconnaissance flights.

Future plans for the Iowa include an interactive tour experience that will allow the visitor to experience what life at sea was like during active duty. Among the highlights will be viewing the inside of one of the main gun turrets, seeing the 17.5-inch (44.45-centimetre) armoured conning station on the bridge and viewing Roosevelt's stateroom.

There will also be tours of secondary weapons, missiles, engineering, armour and special spaces.

The museum is scheduled to open on July 7.

World War II Kittyhawk fighter found in Sahara, shedding light on pilot's fate

From MSNBC World News: World War II Kittyhawk fighter found in Sahara, shedding light on pilot's fate
A remarkably well-preserved fighter plane that crashed in the Sahara Desert during World War II has been found 70 years later, shedding new light on the pilot's struggle to survive.

The American-made Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk was discovered by a Polish oil worker, Jakub Perka, who was exploring the desert in Egypt, The Telegraph newspaper reported. It was about 200 miles from the nearest town.

It is believed that the pilot, Dennis Copping, 24, ran into trouble while flying in 1942, but still managed to land the plane on the sands, the paper said.

Military historian Andy Saunders said that the British flight sergeant "must have survived the crash" because a photograph of the plane showed a parachute had been put up on the side of the plane, apparently as a form of shelter, The Telegraph reported.

"The radio and batteries were out of the plane and it looks like he tried to get it working. If he died at the side of the plane his remains would have been found," Saunders added. "Once he had crashed there, nobody was going to come and get him. It is more likely he tried to walk out of the desert, but ended up walking to his death. It is too hideous to contemplate."

He said the discovery was "the aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb."

Air enthusiasts excited
The Vintage Wings of Canada website speculated that the plane had a mechanical problem, ran out of fuel or that the pilot simply got lost.

The website said there seemed to be a growing consensus that the plane's serial number was ET 574, based on what could be made out from photographs. If this is confirmed, the website said it was possible that Canadian flying ace James "Stocky" Edwards had previously flown the fighter.

The plane's cockpit is in remarkable though dusty condition.

"To say we, at Vintage Wings, are excited by this find in an understatement," the website said.

It expressed concern the plane had been "seriously vandalized -- a travesty the whole aviation world seems unable to stop."

Michael Creane, of the Royal Air Force Museum in London, U.K., told NBC News that it was "incredible" the plane had not been submerged by the shifting sands of the desert.

He said they were "hell bent" on bringing the aircraft to the museum, although he said there were "lots of hoops to jump through."

Civil War ironclad stands between Savannah, harbor dredging

I've already shared a couple of articles about this, here's another:

From Reuters: Civil War ironclad stands between Savannah, harbor dredging

(Reuters) - A Confederate ironclad warship, scuttled by its crew to prevent it from falling into Yankee hands, will be salvaged before the long-planned dredging of the mouth of the Savannah River to handle big, modern commercial container ships.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in charge of the dredging project, can't say how long it will take, but Savannah won't be able to handle new super-sized container ships coming through the Panama Canal in 2014 before its harbor is dredged.

The wreck of the Confederate States Ship Georgia lies 40 feet below the surface of the river under a layer of silt. The ship was scuttled by Confederate sailors in 1864 to prevent it from falling into the hands of Union General William T. Sherman's troops as they approached Savannah.

After the ship is raised, dredging can begin for the $653 million project to deepen Savannah's harbor, river and shipping channel out to sea from 42 feet to 47 feet. The project, which has been studied for 15 years, is underfunded and does not yet have full approval from the Army Corps.

Savannah District Corps spokesman Billy E. Birdwell said it would cost about $14 million to remove the wreck of the ironclad warship.

Both the Union and Confederate navies had ironclads, 19th-century wooden warships covered in heavy iron plating, and they played a part in several dramatic sea battles in the Civil War.

The wreck is owned by the U.S. Navy and the boundary between South Carolina and Georgia runs right through the site, Birdwell said. Although the Corps has had an agreement since 1984 with both states not to dredge within 50 feet of the wreck, the ship has been damaged by previous dredging, Birdwell said.

"That's how it was discovered in the first place," he said. "We struck it with a dredge."

Salt water has destroyed its wooden hull, but the ship's iron casement, the part that was above the waterline when the vessel was a floating Civil War battery, still exists, he said. The wreck is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Corps plans to contract marine archeologists to survey, salvage and conserve the historical artifact.

"This is not a hiccup," Birdwell said. "We were planning all along for the CSS Georgia. It's part of our cultural heritage.

"We don't see it as an obstacle," he said. "We just see it as something we need to do."

FLOATING WEAPONS BATTERY

The ship never saw battle in the open sea, Birdwell said. Its engine was too weak to propel the ponderous vessel quickly forward, so it was used as a floating weapons battery.

Built in the Savannah shipyards in 1862, the 250-foot long ship helped protect the river approaches to the city during the next two years of the Civil War, according to the Naval Historical Center's website.

Savannah, the fourth largest container port in the nation according to the Department of Transportation, is among several South Atlantic ports that want to deepen their shipping channels for super-sized container ships expected to come through the expanded Panama Canal starting in 2014.

Savannah's port lies 21 miles from the ocean and environmentalists have filed lawsuits to block the dredging, which they say could severely impact the marshy river shore along the course of the project, as well as parts of the river upstream toward Augusta.

The Corp's final decision will not be made until the end of this year, Birdwell said. Georgia Ports Authority Executive Director Curtis Foltz said the entire project was expected to be finished by 2016, though some officials said that is optimistic.

Dredging is expected to take two to five years after the project starts, Birdwell said, and could begin as soon as next year if funding is secured.

Committed funds from the state and the Corps total just over $184 million, port officials said. The cost of environmental mitigation, which includes removal of the CSS Georgia, building fish passageways and installation of a "bubbler" system to boost oxygen levels in the river, will be 42 percent of the project's total price tag, Birdwell said.

The deadline for public comments on the Corps' final environmental impact statement, issued this spring, is May 20.

Exactly when the ironclad survey will start and how long it will take to get the ship out of the river is "hard to pin down exactly," Birdwell said. "It's not an overnight process."

The Corps has found two other old ships in the channel: Eclipse, a 100-year-old steel-hulled sailing pilot boat, and Undine, an 1867 English-built clipper ship.

It has no plans to raise them, Birdwell said.

At what price progress? $14 million -- to raise a Civil War ship

From Los Angeles Times: At what price progress? $14 million -- to raise a Civil War ship
ATLANTA -- In certain quarters of the American South, it's common to hear complaints that the remnants of the old Confederacy are an impediment to progress.

In the old port town of Savannah, Ga., the remnants are iron-clad, and lying at the bottom of the Savannah River.

The Associated Press reports that an iron-sided Civil War shipwreck, the CSS Georgia, is getting in the way of a major plan to deepen Savannah's port, a $653-million project that will help Georgia capitalize on the huge cargo ships that will pass through an upgraded Panama Canal in the next couple of years.

The ship, the CSS Georgia, was sunk in 1864 by Confederate forces to keep it from being captured by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, whose Yankee forces captured Savannah in December 1864.

The AP's Russ Bynum reports that the Army Corps of Engineers will head up a plan to raise the Georgia, at a cost of $14 million to taxpayers. Personal effects from the era may still be on board. So could live explosives that run the risk of blowing up.

Proponents of the deepening project say it will benefit Georgia's economy. Environmentalists fear the dredging will harm freshwater wetlands and threaten the city's drinking water supply.

In dusty library, a link to heroic past

From NewsTelegram.com: In dusty library, a link to heroic past
PROVIDENCE — Day after day, a tall, shy woman weaves her way unnoticed through the earnest and learned campus swirl of Brown University. She enters the hush of a library, then promptly vanishes from sight.

Down goes Marie Malchodi, 48, who attended but never graduated from Brown, down to the library's subterranean warrens, where she works as a "book conservation technician." She sweeps her long dark hair into a bun, pierces it with a paint brush, and starts her day, caring for ancient books and ephemera that are sensitive to the touch.

A few weeks ago, Malchodi opened yet another leather-bound book, one of more than 300,000 rare volumes in the hold of the John Hay Library. With surgical precision, she turned the pages of a medical text once owned by Solomon Drowne, class of '73 (1773, that is.). And there, in the back, she found a piece of paper depicting the baptism of Jesus. It was signed:

"P. Revere Sculpt."

Ye gods! Had Marie Malchodi, of Cranston, R.I., book conservation technician, just made contact with Paul Revere, of Boston, silversmith? Revere, who knew of the fiery need to share vital information, would have appreciated Malchodi's galloping reaction, which was:

''I have to show this to somebody."

Malchodi is more spiritually attuned to books than her Orwellian job title might suggest. She came to Brown as an undergraduate in the early 1980s, but life wound up demanding her study. Soon she was working in a College Hill bookstore rather than reading in a college library, and making cabinets rather than writing papers about her beloved Romantics.

One day she saw an advertisement for a bookbinding and conservation job at the university. She has been here ever since - though mostly underground - inspecting old books, submitting to their long-ago stories and vanishing to where now is then and then is now.

In the ensuing 20 years, gray has come to her hair and a husband and twin girls have come to her life, yet wasn't it all just yesterday? When Wordsworth thrilled her heart? When Wordsworth lived?

A year ago, Malchodi was assigned to check the condition of thousands of rare books about to be shipped to an off-campus annex. In a basement room made smaller and louder by the air ducts looming from the ceiling, she tended to her task, sitting on a stool set beside a collection of dusty, rolled-up maps, all needing to be vacuumed, and all with titles like "Madeira and Mamore Railway Plan of the Rio Madeira at San Antonio."

The job sometimes took longer than necessary, because of that tendency of hers to get lost in things: illustrations in children's books, brittle newspaper clippings, and, especially, handwritten notes from the long dead. She feels the rush of intimacy as the distance in time collapses.

Now here, on a small cart, were another 177 books, all from the collection of Drowne, a physician and polymath who distinguished himself during the American Revolution. "Watts's Logick." ''Kalm's Travels." ''Plague and Yellow Fever."

Next up: an 1811 edition of "The Modern Practice of Physic," by Dr. Robert Thomas, a champion of purgatives as a cure for disease. Malchodi examined the red leather cover, the gold tooling on the spine. Then she pulled out that piece of paper.

The engraving, titled "Buried With Him By Baptism," shows John the Baptist raising Jesus from the River Jordan under a blazing sun, while people in vaguely Colonial attire watch from shore. And in the lower right corner appears the name of an American Revolution icon.

Who knows how long this papery wisp lay hidden in the musty stacks at the century-old Hay Library? In the section reserved for the history of science. Near a microscope and a skull. Across from a copy of Darwin's monograph on the "sub-class Cirripedia" (Barnacles, that is.).

What Malchodi knew was that she had to sound the alarm. With some hesitancy - "because I don't want to bother her" - she approached the raised desk of Rachel Lapkin, a library materials conservator who was immersed in stabilizing the leather of an 18th century Chinese dictionary.

Lapkin, who actually enjoys her colleague's enthusiasm, studied the print and found it fascinating, even bizarre. "I think we should look into that," she said.

The basement brain trust decided that the print must be shown to Richard Noble, the rare books cataloger, whose office takes some doing to reach. So, with the discovery safely inside Thomas' celebration of purgatives, Malchodi began her journey through an underground labyrinth, carrying the volume as a deacon might carry the Bible.

Out of her basement work space and past some lockers. Past discarded wooden catalog cabinets. Down some steps to the subbasement. Past some metal book shelves and a "Do Not Remove" sign. Down more steps and through the tunnel that crosses beneath College Street. Up to Noble's office, in Cataloging and Acquisitions. Carefully carrying that Revere - if it was a Revere.

And Noble had stepped away for lunch.

An hour or so later, Malchodi returned. "She said, 'I found this,' and presented it to me with a big smile," Noble recalled. "She let me discover what was inside. She let me have that much fun."

Noble's first reaction was to say that the engraving was just crude enough to be a Revere. Then he held the engraving up to the light as a test. It had the faintly ribbed look of paper produced from the slurry pulp made of rags, signaling that it was mostly likely handmade paper from the 18th century.

Yes. A Revere.

This could very well mean that the patriot - who had nurtured t he seeds of rebellion with his engraving of the Boston Massacre of 1770 - had cut the scene into a flat copper plate; filled the grooves with ink, perhaps by pressing it in with the palm of his hand; wiped away the excess with circular sweeps of a small cloth; and used a hand-operated press to produce the engraving.

''That was a nice moment," Noble said.

It turned out that Malchodi had uncovered only the fifth known copy of this particular engraving, which is "a bit of a curiosity in Revere's work," according to Lauren Hewes, the curator of graphic arts at the American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester, Mass. She said that while Revere carefully documented his prosperous and prolific career as an artisan, he made no mention of this piece, and so the exact date of the engraving is unclear.

''It sits outside of what we think of when we think of Paul Revere," she said. "It wasn't all patriotic topics - he did a lot more than that."

How the engraving came to be in the possession of Solomon Drowne is still being researched; his descendants have some theories. And its monetary worth is probably only a few thousand dollars, but that is hardly what matters.

''It's really a great moment," Hewes said. "That moment of discovery."

Malchodi made her discovery on a Thursday. On that Friday, she was back at work beneath the verdant Brown campus. Inspecting old books, vacuuming old maps, opening herself to time's collapse.

Civil War shipwreck in the way of Ga. port project

From Yahoo News: Civil War shipwreck in the way of Ga. port project SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Before government engineers can deepen one of the nation's busiest seaports to accommodate future trade, they first need to remove a $14 million obstacle from the past — a Confederate warship rotting on the Savannah River bottom for nearly 150 years.

Confederate troops scuttled the ironclad CSS Georgia to prevent its capture by Gen. William T. Sherman when his Union troops took Savannah in December 1864. It's been on the river bottom ever since.

Now, the Civil War shipwreck sits in the way of a government agency's $653 million plan to deepen the waterway that links the nation's fourth-busiest container port to the Atlantic Ocean. The ship's remains are considered so historically significant that dredging the river is prohibited within 50 feet of the wreckage.

So the Army Corps of Engineers plans to raise and preserve what's left of the CSS Georgia. The agency's final report on the project last month estimated the cost to taxpayers at $14 million. The work could start next year on what's sure to be a painstaking effort.

And leaving the shipwreck in place is not an option: Officials say the harbor must be deepened to accommodate supersize cargo ships coming through an expanded Panama Canal in 2014 — ships that will bring valuable revenue to the state and would otherwise go to other ports.

Underwater surveys show two large chunks of the ship's iron-armored siding have survived, the largest being 68 feet long and 24 feet tall. Raising them intact will be a priority. Researchers also spotted three cannons on the riverbed, an intact propeller and other pieces of the warship's steam engines. And there's smaller debris scattered across the site that could yield unexpected treasures, requiring careful sifting beneath 40 feet of water.

"We don't really have an idea of what's in the debris field," said Julie Morgan, a government archaeologist with the Army Corps. "There could be some personal items. People left the ship in a big hurry. Who's to say what was on board when the Georgia went down."

Also likely to slow the job: finding and gently removing cannonballs and other explosive projectiles that, according to Army Corps experts, could still potentially detonate.

That's a massive effort for a warship that went down in Civil War history as an ironclad flop.

The Civil War ushered in the era of armored warships. In Savannah, a Ladies Gunboat Association raised $115,000 to build such a ship to protect the city. The 120-foot-long CSS Georgia had armor forged from railroad iron, but its engines proved too weak to propel the ship's 1,200-ton frame against river currents. The ship was anchored on the riverside at Fort Jackson as a floating gun battery.

Ultimately the Georgia was scuttled by its own crew without having ever fired a shot in combat.

"I would say it was an utter failure," said Ken Johnston, executive director of the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Ga., who says the shipwreck nonetheless has great historical value. "It has very clearly become a symbol for why things went wrong for the Confederate naval effort."

As a homespun war machine assembled by workers who likely had never built a ship before, the CSS Georgia represents the South's lack of an industrial base, Johnston said. The North, by contrast, was teeming with both factories and laborers skilled at shipbuilding. They churned out a superior naval fleet that enabled the Union to successfully cut off waterways used to supply Confederate forces.

Despite its functional failures, the shipwreck's historical significance was cemented in 1987 when it won a place on the National Register of Historic Places, the official listing of treasured sites and buildings from America's past. That gave the Georgia a measure of protection — dredging near the shipwreck was prohibited.

Still, a great deal of damage had already been done. The last detailed survey of the ship in 2003 found it in pieces and its hull apparently disintegrated. Erosion had taken a large toll, and telltale marks showed dredging machinery had already chewed into the wreckage.

Salvaging the remains will likely move slowly.

Divers will need to divide the site into a grid to search for artifacts and record the locations of what they find. The large sections or armored siding will likely need to be cradled gently by a web of metal beams to raise them to the surface intact, said Gordon Watts, an underwater archaeologist who helped lead the 2003 survey of the shipwreck.

The Army Corps' report also notes special care will be needed find and dispose of any cannonballs and other explosive projectiles remaining on the riverbed.

"If there is black powder that's 150 years old, and if it is dry, then the stability of it has deteriorated," Watts said. "You'd want to be as careful as humanly possible in recovering the stuff."

Once the remains of the Georgia are removed from the river and preserved by experts, the Army Corps will have to decide who gets the spoils. Morgan said ultimately the plan is to put the warship's artifacts on public display. But which museum or agency will get custody of them has yet to be determined.

Right now the Confederate shipwreck legally belongs to the U.S. Navy. More than 150 years after the Civil War began, the CSS Georgia is still officially classified as a captured enemy vessel.

Tanzania: Treasure Shattered With Dynamite

From All Africa (an opinion piece): Tanzania: Treasure Shattered With Dynamite
The effects of dynamite fishing are not always obvious. The sea, before and after the life has been shattered out of it by dynamiting, sort of looks the same -the waves are still amazing, the water still changes color with the sky and that happens within the overall sameness of its shape. Most of us spend little time under the water so we do not see the rubble.

It is hard to quantify the costs of dynamite fishing. Longitudinally we can notice at the fish market, that the big fish and lobsters that used to be there are no longer; you can notice how expensive even smaller ones have become.

Do we notice that the local fishermen are suffering before we just let them fade away as they become poorer and poorer and their sons become thieves for lack of work?

As I tried to think of a way to quantify the damage, to compare what the life was like before the dynamiting, and now... I thought to July 1989 when I made two trips to Mbudya Island.

The dynamite fishing had already begun. Already the rubble was rolling, around this small island off the coast near Kunduchi but also the life and beauty were so exquisite, it was as if it would always be there.

The law that is in place now came in 1994 - the Marine Parks and Reserves Act that prohibits collecting from places like Mbudya. In Section 10: Other Regulations, it states 22.-(1) No person within a marine park or reserve shall, except in accordance with terms and conditions specified in the regulations or them provisions of this Act- (b) gather, collect or, remove any fish, animal, aquatic flora, or vegetation, whether live or dead, or any sand, minerals, or aquatic substrate. That includes shells and coral.

I wish I had understood, but I was not aware that I should not take shells. Now I find it obvious that shells need to be allowed to stay on the beach. Even when Mollusca are dead, their beautiful skeletons serve important ecological functions. They serve as homes for hermit crabs for example and become substrate for corals and other creatures, and then sand. But 23 years ago, unaware, while walking along the beach I randomly picked up shells. There were so many. I did not feel greedy.

I wasn't concentrating on the task. Many types of shells were so common I did not bother to save one. Those were beautiful amazing days, and I made notes of what I saw in my journal.

In 1989 I noted (but did not collect the shells of: oysters, scorpion shells, many pairs of sunrise Tellins of several different colors, abalone, Pen shells, many cowry species, mussels, mitre shells, several cone species, bubble shells, dog whelks, tulip shells, conches, violet snails, periwinkles, wentle traps, turret and top shells, Venus shells, surf clams, cockles, coral snails, ark shells, cuttlefish bones and others.

I saw alive (and did not take): chitons, Keyhole Limpets, top shells, oysters, cones, nerites, and pheasant shells. The examples I picked up and put in my pocket were a non-scientific sample; perhaps we could say it was an aesthetic sampling, reaching out for whatever caught my eye. I brought the shells home, as many people do. After some time admiring them I put them in a clear plastic candy box.

They were a treasure of beautiful colors and gorgeous rounded shapes. I put the treasure box onto a back shelf. I never collected shells after that. Yesterday I thought of that box for the first time in years. I had to search for it, in different storage areas, but I found it. The box was dirty but inside, the shells are still glistening.

I took the box to a colleagues's house. She spends a lot of time by the sea; she's a sailor, and a kayaker; at dawn she is usually walking on the beach. And she likes looking for shells. She has been studying shells here for 2.5 years, and been many times to Mbudya.

We compared: the shells I had collected casually over two days visiting Mbudya in July 1989, with the shells my colleague had documented in the same area between September 2009 - April 2012. I will tell you about it next week, but here is a hint: in the amount of time it took to collect a treasure chest from Mbudya in 1989, my colleague in 2012 would expect, to find "one good shell and the rest will be pieces".

Australian billionaire to build Titanic replica

From CNN: Australian billionaire to build Titanic replica
(CNN) -- An Australian mining magnate has commissioned a Chinese shipyard to build a replica of the ill-fated Titanic, complete in every detail but equipped with modern technology to prevent a repeat of the original's fateful maiden voyage 100 years ago.

Clive Palmer, a Queensland mining billionaire with strong links to China, told Australian media that he had signed a memorandum of understanding with CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the ship.

He said construction of the luxury cruise ship would begin next year and the ship would be ready to sail in 2016.

"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," he said in a statement.

The new vessel is due to make its maiden voyage from London to New York in late 2016. The cost of the construction of the new vessel has not been revealed, a spokesman for Palmer told Australian media.

"Of course, it will sink if you put a hole in it," Palmer said at a press conference. "It is going to be designed so it won't sink. But, of course, if you are superstitious like you are, you never know what could happen.''

The original Titanic -- the largest ship of its type at the time -- sank 100 years ago this month when it struck an iceberg on the night of April 15, 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. More than 1,500 people perished in the disaster, which captured the popular imagination. The ship had been vaunted as "unsinkable."

The mining magnate from Queensland owns a luxury resort on Australia's Sunshine Coast and plans to build a fleet of luxury liners.