Better tech is giving explorers greater access to the ocean floor than ever before.
The last year has been a banner year for the discovery of shipwrecks. From the discovery of World War II aircraft carriers sunk in action to submarines lost at sea, underwater wrecks are being located faster than ever. It’s all thanks to new technologies allowing explorers to image the underwater environment, even at depths of more than a mile, as well as autonomous search vehicles operating above and below the surface of the ocean.In February of 2019, the late Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen’s Vulcan and the undersea exploration ship R/V Petrel announced the discovery of the Japanese Battleship Hiei, sunk off the Solomon Islands by Allied forces in 1942. This was quickly followed up by the discovery of the aircraft carriers USS Hornet and USS Wasp, the destroyer USS Strong, and four more warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy.Meanwhile, in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Ocean Infinity and its ship Seabed Constructor have located two submarine wrecks in the last twelve months: the ARA San Juan, an Argentinian submarine lost with all hands in November 2017, and Minerve, a French Navy submarine lost in 1968.R/V Petrel and Seabed Constructor are both equipped with multibeam echosounder sonar systems. Multibeam echosound sonar systems transmit and receive pings of sonar sound to build up a three dimensional picture of the ocean floor below....MORE
