[Aztlan] Underwater Expedition finds no pre-Clovis artifacts

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,

Last week, I sent news of an underwater exploration off the coast of  
Texas looking for pre-Clovis artifacts. The expedition cost $300,000.  
They did not find any artifacts. This is why it is so difficult to  
find pre-Clovis sites. The cost and the difficulties involved are large.

Mike Ruggeri


By Leigh Jones / Galveston County Daily News

GALVESTON — The underwater explorers who spent last week scouring the  
offshore continental shelf for signs of 19,000-year-old human  
habitation sailed back to Galveston empty-handed Saturday.
The crew of geologists, biologists and marine archeologists was  
hoping to find clues of human activity in the area during the last  
Ice Age, when they believe the Texas coastline extended 100 miles  
into the Gulf of Mexico.
The expedition did not turn up anything definitive, but the  
scientists did find what they believe to be signs of the ancient  
shoreline about 330 feet below the ocean’s surface.
“A series of long vertical steps look like they may have been created  
by the movement of waves, which carve out a trough and deposit  
material farther up,” wrote team member Todd Viola, who posted  
mission logs daily on the expedition’s Web site. “This is the same  
profile we see on modern beaches.”
Viola described the find as very exciting but noted further  
exploration would be necessary to verify the scientists’ theory.
Last week’s expedition, dubbed “Secrets of the Gulf,” was headed by  
Robert Ballard, the oceanographer and explorer best known for his  
discovery of the Titanic in 1985.
The team traveled from Galveston to the Flower Garden Banks, the  
northernmost coral reef on the United States continental shelf,  
aboard the SSV Carolyn Chouest with the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered  
research submarine in tow. It was the first expedition Ballard led  
from shore.
Using a shipboard television studio and satellite technology, the  
team transmitted live video feed to groups of scientists all over the  
country. They also produced five live informational broadcasts each day.
According to the mission logs, the short expedition was plagued by  
bad weather and technical difficulties that limited use of Ballard’s  
underwater research capsule, Argus. When it finally entered the  
water, the remotely operated vehicle transmitted high-definition  
pictures of the ancient shoreline on the last day of the trip.
While Argus was out of commission earlier in the week, the team  
relied on images from the submarine. Two scientists at a time  
stretched out in the bottom of the 145-foot vessel and peered out of  
view ports to observe the ocean floor.
The submarine’s unique construction — with wheels for driving along  
the seabed — allowed the scientists to scrutinize the reef from a  
depth of 40 feet.
The discovery of an active mud volcano created quite a stir, wrote  
submarine captain Rick Panlilio in a March 6 log entry.
“We imaged it first with our side scanning sonar and found a large  
crater about 50 yards across on the summit,” he wrote. “The summit  
was about 160 feet up from the surrounding plane. On the sonar  
images, we could see a wisp of something trailing off the top of the  
mound.
“We thrusted the submarine down on top of the hill and crept toward  
the center and, ‘Eureka!’ we found that the dormant volcano was  
highly active, with a constant jet of gas, brine and silt being  
ejected from a briny mud pool inside the crater. The rocky structure  
inside the crater was jagged and run through with small canyons where  
dense brine seeped out.”
The submarine and its crew sailed back to Galveston on Saturday. The  
scientists returned to their labs, but the Navy crew will remain in  
port until they leave for their next expedition Thursday.
During their layover, Lt. James Krohne said the sailors would be  
taking a trip to the Johnson Space Center to compare notes with the  
astronauts.




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