Center For Ocean Sciences Education Excellence COSEE TEK
Follow this link to skip to the main content
HOME ABOUT US PROGRAMS EVENTS NEWS RESOURCES DIRECTORY CONTACT US
SEARCH NEWS
NEWS
 

Sweeping the seafloor for Perry's Revenge - 02.13.2012

Remus 100 AUV
Remus 100 AUV (credit: WHOI)
On February 8, 2012, engineers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) assisted Underwater Archaeologist George Schwarz from the U.S. Navy's History and Heritage Command to explore Watch Hill Reef using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with sidescan sonar technology. WHOI's AUV (Remus) can be programmed to acquire seafloor back scatter data over a series of overlapping lanes providing a unique image of hard objects on the seafloor over a relatively wide expanse. The primary objective of the survey was to uncover the USS Revenge, a historic naval ship commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry that sank off the coast of Rhode Island in 1811. Divers Craig Harger and Charlie Buffum believed to have found the wreck nearly six years ago when they came across a canon during a recreational dive. The team must process the data and analyze the imagery before making any further conclusions.

Click here to read the whole story on Huffington Post.

Sidescan image of another shipwreck, the Palmer & Crary in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (credit: NURTEC/SBNMS)
Sidescan image of another shipwreck, the Palmer & Crary in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (credit: NURTEC/SBNMS)

Return to News Archive