Exploring The Black Sea: DOERRI

I once wanted to be an archaeological oceanographer.  I imagined crawling into a small submersible with a few other scientists.  We would be wearing matching bright blue uniforms with a decal over our hearts of a starfish, beluga, or some other PR-friendly animal that goes with blue.

My parents had sent me an ad from their local newspaper for The Institute for Exploration and the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography at Rhode Island.

I enrolled in ancient latin the next semester, almost failed, and narrowly escaped getting getting the boot out of my program.  I then decided I should stick with what I'm good at, and continue tinkering with test tubes, mixing chemicals, and watching tiny plant cells shimmy and divide on a microscope slide.

And that's exactly what oceanography professor and president of the Institute of Exploration, Robert Ballard, and a team of international scientists plan on doing in the Black Sea.

Ballard did, after all, discover the Titanic wreckage over 20 years ago, and now he and his team are after much MUCH older ship wrecks.

The Black Sea is a unique region of the ocean.  Along with a few fjords along the coast of British Columbia and Northern Europe, and the Cariaco trench off the coast of Venezuela, its bottom waters are considered 'dead zones', or regions were so little oxygen is present that but only a few species of bacteria can survive.

These 'anoxic' environments are typically produced only when two requirements are met: 1) Little to no mixing of bottom water with surface water or nearby oxygen-rich waters outside the 'dead zone', usually facilitated by a large sill protruding from the ocean floor; and 2) A high production of organic matter via photosynthesis which sinks and fuels bacterial growth at depth, thus using up the last bit of oxygen available.

So why might archaeologists be particularly interested in the Black Sea, besides it having been a major thoroughfare of ancient merchants?  Well, think of anoxic bottoms waters as a watery tomb much like some swamps that have been discovered to naturally mummify bodies.  The lack of oxygen prevents significant degradation of sunken ship wrecks, keeping them intact for long periods of time.

Now the only problem is: how do you get down there?

To do so, assistant professor Art Trembalis from the University of Delaware will be accompanying Ballard, along with his autonomous underwater vehicle DOERRI (Delaware Oceanographic and Environmental Research Remote Instrument). 

Although ancient shipwrecks and muddy sea floors might keep any archaeologist and oceanographer alike riveted, Trembalis shares a more personal motive for his involvement as he recounts what first spurred his interest in oceanography...