Bells, Problems, & Tools
When you're searching for treasure, you need to find possible locations. How do modern treasure-hunters do this? They first need to take a sonar image of the area. They use a device called a sonar fish, which is dragged behind the ship. The sonar fish bounces sound waves off of the bottom of the sea, and make an image from the echoes. Then the images are looked over, and dark spots that could be potential shipwrecks are investigated.
And, even then, you sometimes need a "map" of the area so you can search. Why? The current can pick up stuff, and blow it into your camera, so you can't see! So sometimes you need a little help.
Picture mosaics are a big help here, and very important! Tons of pictures of the surface are made. Then, like a puzzle, these high-resolution pictures are stuck together to make one big image. These are very helpful.
Even then, you don't know which ship it is. It may be your target... it may not. That's when you start gathering clues... and bells are very important in this respect. Bells usually have the date of their manufacture. And the name of the ship they were on! The name alone can solve the mystery of the wreck... or at least start doing so. Sometimes, symbols are on the bell as well, so when you can't read the inscription, it can give valuable clues.
"Why wouldn't you be able to read the inscription?", you may ask. There are different reasons. If the bell is made of copper, copper disease may be a reason. When something copper sinks into water, it starts deteriorating. This can make it unreadable... and fragile! When the copper hits air, however, the air speeds up the process. So when something's copper's on board, you want to start getting clues fast!
Cencretion (sp?) is another problem when figuring out artifacts. Iron starts rusting and deteriorating in water. Cencretion (sp?) is a cement-like layer that forms during this, and it's a layer that grows. Sometimes it swallows up nearby objects (like coins). That can actually make cencretions (sp?) useful at times, though it's a pain as well, because you can find more objects when bringing up one. These extra objects can prove whether or not the ship was carrying valuables... sometimes.
The handy robot that carries these objects is the good ol' R.O.V.! However, this fiber-optic-data-cable controlled device sometimes needs help carrying these objects up. Boxes and baskets have to be sent down along with the R.O.V.. Sometimes, these boxes have to be specially made so the object can survive the upward trip. And sometimes the R.O.V. has to be changed or adjusted for a different job than usual... like when it has to be used for making a picture mosaic.
The pilots have to be clever at times. When there's a malfunction, break, or some sort of technical problem underwater, they are the ones who have to fix it... and it's not always easy. Highly difficult tasks may be needed in order to fix it. A lot depends on the pilots of the R.O.V. in general, since the robot is the big piece to exploring.
Teamwork is heavily needed in this business. And I'm not just talking about the three rooms controlling the R.O.V., though they are important. Sometimes more than one ship is needed to get the job done! And not everything can be done at sea... labs that are at the shore are highly important too. Sometimes they're needed to make tests that cannot be done on the ship.
Many tools are needed to do the testing, finding clues, and figuring out those clues (and getting them, of course)! Some are high-tech, like cameras and computers to make one big, continuous picture of the artifact (helps spots clues). Though, surprising, sometimes the most simplest method and the simplest tools are what's needed to figure out the mystery... for example, making a rubbing using crayons on a mold imprinted from the artifact (or on a mold imprinted from a mold that was imprinted on an artifact) to figure out the figures on an artifact that was difficult to read otherwise!!! And, sometimes, tools from other expertise fields are needed.... like dental putty to make molds of hard-to-read inscriptions, or scapels (sp?) to remove corrosion around hard-to-read letters! And history can be a major tool in figuring out stuff too, since the history of the ship may be written down somewhere.
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