The Law of the Sea and International Marine Archaeology: Abandoning Admiralty Law to Protect Historic Shipwrecks

This Comment assesses the marine archaeology provisions of UNCLOS III and argues that the principles embodied in U.S. abandoned shipwreck law may significantly contribute to cooperative efforts that determine the future of shipwrecks found in international waters. Part I compares the existing legal framework of international marine archaeology established by UNCLOS III with U.S. law on abandoned historic shipwrecks. Part II presents commentators\u27 interpretations of the Convention\u27s marine archaeology provisions. Part II emphasizes these commentators\u27 views on the ability of a nation to obtain jurisdiction over shipwreck recovery operations in international waters and whether nations should apply principles of salvage and finds to these efforts. Part III argues that UNCLOS III should be broadly interpreted to better reflect the U.S. view that salvage and finds law is inappropriate for historic shipwrecks. Finally, Part III proposes a legal structure for the treatment of historic shipwrecks found beyond domestic jurisdiction

Environmental Risks Monitoring of Shipwrecks in Italian Seas

After a description of the international regulatory framework, this paper examines the European project DE.E.P.P. and provides an overview of shipwreck databases in Italy. Afterwards, it reconstructs the recent history of the supertanker VLCC Haven which represents one of the largest Mediterranean shipwrecks. The findings of this paper emphasize the need to unify all the various agencies databases into a national Territorial Information System of potentially polluting wrecks. This System would be completed by all the information available in archives and press, to allow an adequate environmental risk monitoring and classification of shipwrecks in the Italian seas

Maritime archaeology in the Mediterranean

The archaeological study of the Mediterranean sea and its coasts is, for the most part, thought of as underwater archaeology, and the history of maritime archaeology in the Mediterranean has conventionally been conceived as the story of underwater exploration. However, the discipline of archaeology as a whole has continued to develop, and the concern with conceptual issues which has characterized much archaeological scholarship in recent years is having an effect on the study of cultural remains found, not just on land, but in the sea as well. This paper will start with a brief review of the history of maritime archaeology in the Mediterranean region, and proceed to consider some of the new approaches which promise to deliver stimulating insights into the function of the sea and the role of seafarers during prehistoric and historic times.peer-reviewe

Distribution of red deepsea crab (Chaceon quinquedens) by size and sex in the Gulf of Mexico

The red deepsea crab (Chaceon quinquedens (Smith, 1879)) has supported a commercial fishery off the coast of New England since the 1970s (Wigley et al., 1975) and has had annual harvests from 400 metric tons (t) (1996) to 4000 t (2001) (NEFMC, 2002). In 2002, a fishery management plan for the northeast fishery on the Atlantic coast was implemented and total allowable catch was reduced to approximately 2500 t (NEFMC, 2002). Although there are management plans for the golden crab (C. fenneri) and the red deep sea crab for Atlantic coast regions, there is no fishery management plan for red deepsea crabs in the Gulf of Mexico. Successful management for sustainable harvests should be based on a knowledge of the life history of the species, but C. quinquedens has been a difficult species for which to obtain life history and abundance information because of its deep distribution

Is the Shipwreck I Found in Lake Michigan Mine? Great Lakes Shipwreck Legal Research Basics and Sources

There have been approximately 6,000 shipwrecks claiming an estimated 30,000 lives in the Great Lakes and new shipwrecks continue to be located, such as the recently discovered Atlanta. There are many opportunities for divers, boaters, and other users of the Great Lakes to come across found and new shipwrecks. This article discusses the basic framework of federal, state, and other law governing these shipwrecks

Developing a GIS-Database and Risk Index for Potentially Polluting Marine Sites

The increasing availability of geospatial marine data provides an opportunity for hydrographic offices to contribute to the identification of “Potentially Polluting Marine Sites” (PPMS). These include shipwrecks, oil rigs, pipelines, and dumping areas. To adequately assess the environmental risk of these sites, relevant information must be collected and converted into a multi-scale geodatabase suitable for site inventory and geo-spatial analysis. In addition, a Risk Index – representing an assessment of the magnitude of risk associated with any site – can be derived to determine the potential impacts of these PPMS. However, the successful collection and integration of PPMS information requires some effort to ‘normalize’ and standardize the data based on recognized international standards. In particular, there is benefit in structuring the data in conformance with the Universal Hydrographic Data Model (IHO S-100) recently adopted by the International Hydrographic Organization. In this paper, an S-100 compliant product specification for a PPMS geo-spatial database and associated Marine Site Risk Index is proposed which can be used by national hydrographic offices and marine protection agencies

Shipwreck ecology:Understanding the function and processes from microbes to megafauna

An estimated three million shipwrecks exist worldwide and are recognized as cultural resources and foci of archaeological investigations. Shipwrecks also support ecological resources by providing underwater habitats that can be colonized by diverse organisms ranging from microbes to megafauna. In the present article, we review the emerging ecological subdiscipline of shipwreck ecology, which aims to understand ecological functions and processes that occur on shipwrecks. We synthesize how shipwrecks create habitat for biota across multiple trophic levels and then describe how fundamental ecological functions and processes, including succession, zonation, connectivity, energy flow, disturbance, and habitat degradation, manifest on shipwrecks. We highlight future directions in shipwreck ecology that are ripe for exploration, placing a particular emphasis on how shipwrecks may serve as experimental networks to address long-standing ecological questions.</p

Potentially Polluting Marine Sites GeoDB: An S-100 Geospatial Database as an Effective Contribution to the Protection of the Marine Environment

Potentially Polluting Marine Sites (PPMS) are objects on, or areas of, the seabed that may release pollution in the future. A rationale for, and design of, a geospatial database to inventory and manipu-late PPMS is presented. Built as an S-100 Product Specification, it is specified through human-readable UML diagrams and implemented through machine-readable GML files, and includes auxiliary information such as pollution-control resources and potentially vulnerable sites in order to support analyses of the core data. The design and some aspects of implementation are presented, along with metadata requirements and structure, and a perspective on potential uses of the database