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In early 2009, the Waitt Institute for Discovery conducted a deep-sea search for Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft in the area of the South Pacific where many researchers believe she crashed and perished on July 2, 1937. On that day, she and navigator Fred Noonan vanished without a trace during Earhart’s attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world at the equator.

The Institute’s mission, known as CATALYST 2, involved assembling a diverse group of experts from multiple backgrounds and institutions to identify the most likely search areas for Earhart’s plane. Then, using a pair of REMUS 6000 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles equipped with side scan sonar, an experienced research team surveyed over 2,000 square miles of ocean floor at an average depth of 5,200 meters.

Sadly, locating the Electra was not to be. But, the good news is we’re confident we know where she isn’t.

Therefore, for the benefit of future researchers, the Waitt Institute is sharing all scientific results, as well as a provocative, first-hand account of life aboard ship, at a specially designed new Web portal known as Search for Amelia. One of the most comprehensive digital records on the life and legacy of Amelia Earhart available today, Search for Amelia is a collaborative site where comments and ideas about Earhart and her final flight are invited and encouraged.

Waitt Institute partners during CATALYST 2 included Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

This update covers 6 new grants approved during August and September 2009 for a total of $85,470.

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NG.com

Video: Rare Goldrush Shipwreck Found

Ghost Ship Pictures

Los Angeles Times

Sunken Canadian stern-wheeler is an underwater time capsule

Canadian Coverage

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Globe and Mail

Klondike Relic

Canada.com

Sunken Gold Rush Ship discovered in Yukon lake

Vancouver Sun

B.C. researchers discover gold rush ghost ship in Yukon lake

Grant Number: W1-08

GPS: 18.15, 66.30

NGS/Waitt Expedition

Use of remote sensors to detect drone congregation areas of Apis mellifera in Puerto Rico

Principle Investigator
Mr. Alberto Galindo-Cardona, M. Sc.
University of Puerto Rico

Location
Experimental Agricultural Station of the University of Puerto Rico - Gurabo, Puerto Rico
Department of Engineering Building of the University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez, Puerto Rico

Field Dates
06/15/2008 - 06/15/2009

Expedition Team Members

Mr. Alberto Galindo-Cardona, M. Sc.- University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

Mrs. Rafiné Moreno-Jackson, Biology Undergraduate Student - University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

Mr. Gianni Pablos, BS Electrical Engineering - University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez.

About the Expedition

Africanized bees are famous for being aggressive but in Puerto Rico they display a gentle behavior. Such opposite behavior is related to the mixing between Africanized and European races in the island.  Currently, Puerto Rico has a high density of Africanized honey bees (in apiaries and in the wild).  Honey bees mate during nuptial flights where males (drones) congregate in specific areas (drone congregation areas, DCAs) to wait for a virgin queen and have sex. These nuptial flights occur while a group of males follow a queen flying at 15 mph (watch video), and reach heights of up to 60 meters to mating.  Several males can mate with a single queen.  Males will congregate near their beehive (in a radius of 4km; see Picture 1) to increase the chance of mating or survival.  The successful males will die after mating takes place but those who cannot mate return to their colonies.

We are determining DCAs in Puerto Rico using a new system that consists of aerial images and radar.  We will mark males with a number and a tiny antenna (see Picture 2).  Then we will use a radar to locate previously marked males.  This will be the first study to use information based on this system to locate DCAs. In addition, this project will help in the handling and control of the Africanized bees in places where they are a problem to public health.  It will also answer why the Colony Collapse Disorder is occurring. This system is a valuable resource in the study of movement of small animals across the landscape, like in the forest canopy.

About the Principle Investigator

Ten years of experience in research and field work, with specific expertise in Biology and Entomology, have given Mr. Galindo-Cardona training in the study of insect ecology and behavior.  Mr. Galindo-Cardona obtained a Bachelors Degree in Entomology at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia.  He also worked in the Colombian Andes at Fundación Ecoandina.  This experience includes the use of a broad set of methods and techniques in ecology and behavior of insects and birds.  As part of this project, ant-pitas birds were rediscovered (previously thought extinct).  In addition, he worked with bess beetles (Passalidae), studying habitat selection and dispersal.  After his MSc., he started studying honey bees (Apidae) to understand the effect of a neurohormone of natural origin on the bees’ behavior.  He is currently completing a PhD in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico working with honey bees.  He is interested in different research areas.  These include behavioral, molecular and landscape ecology.  He is a mentor to many undergraduate students and is always willing to share his knowledge with everyone around him.  He also encourages his students to share their research experiences in local scientific meetings.

Q&A with the Principle Investigator

How was the expedition?

The expedition has been of great benefit because our project has interconnected professors and students from various universities (University of New Brunswick, Canada.; University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez; University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras), and several disciplines (Biology, Ecology, Ethology, Physics and Engineering).  Also, our Project has been supported by organizations like National Geographic, Ford Foundation and NASA.

The original idea of assembling the radar in an ultralight plane has not yet been done because the modification and portability of the radar has been complex.  The radar must be modified first so that it will receive the signal that we are looking for.  We also needed to do previous experiments to determine the movement range of the drones.  Now, we know the spatial scale with which we will be working with the radar.  We found that 20% of the drones that go out to find mating areas return to their apiary.  We also found that the drone congregation areas (DCAs) are established inside a radius of 4Km around the apiary.

What are you looking forward to?

I want to develop tools of low environmental impact to track honey bees and contribute to the solution of different questions like, for example, where do bees have sex and why is the Colony Collapse Disorder occurring.  I also want to study the different mechanisms that are part of the short and long term memory of honey bees, through the tracking and analysis of the trajectories.

Why do you do the research you do?

I was motivated to work on this project because of the absence of information about the mating areas at a landscape level in a more detailed way.  This is of great importance to understand how the bees’ hybridization occurs.

Why do you feel this expedition is important?

This project is important on a national level because it is key to decipher the enigma of the Colony Collapse Disorder (DCC).  Also, our project will have an impact on the protection of endangered species whose habitat is of difficult access.  The easy management and portability of our tracking system will be available to study these species in ways that are not actually possible.  On a long term, our system will be operated from an ultralight plane or a hot air balloon.  This will give access to remote areas and will have a low environmental impact.  This project will have diverse applications to the study of behavior of dispersal of organisms in the landscape, in wild ecosystems as well as in agro-ecosystems.

GEOLOGY

Rogelio D. Acevedo - South America, Argentina

Edward P. Gardiner - Africa, Congo

GEOGRAPHCY/OCEANOGRAPHY

Padraig R. Carmody - Africa, Zambia

Kim M. Cobb - Oceania, Pacific Islands    

ECOLOGY

Luis F.Suarez - South America, Peru

Samuel Meacham - America, Mexico

Allan P. Sullivan - North America, United States

OCEANOGRAPHY

Benjamin F. Horton - Middle America, Costa Rica

Robert Pitman - Oceania, Kiribati

ARCHAEOLOGY

Scott W. Martin - Europe, United Kingdom

Gonzalo Pimentel - South America, Chile

Thomas G. Garrison - Middle America, Guatemala

Scott R. Hutson - Middle America, Mexico

Eamonn J. Keogh - North America, United States    

Alexander Geurds - America, Nicaragua

UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY

Pearce Paul Creasman - Africa, Egypt

Nathan T. Richards - Middle America, Bermuda

Randall J. Sasaki - Asia, Vietnam

George Schwarz - North America, United States

Amy E. Gusick - Middle America, Mexico

Caroline R. Wickham-Jones - Europe, United Kingdom

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Jessica Yorzinski - North America, United States

PALEONTOLOGY

Leslea J. Hlusko - Africa, Tanzania

Qiang  Li - Asia, China

Iyad S. Zalmout - Africa, Egypt

John J. Shea - Africa, Kenya, Rift Valley

Elwyn L. Simons - Africa, Madagascar

Mario A. Rivera - South America, Chile

PRIMATOLOGY

Jean P. Boubli - South America, Brazil

Lisa F. Dabek - Oceania, Papua New Guinea

BIOLOGY

Ben T. Hirsch - Middle America, Panama

Harold F Greeney - South America, Ecuador

Michael P. Curran - Africa, Mozambique           

Olaf P. Jensen - Asia, Mongolia

Susanne S. Renner - Asia, Australia         

Allison K. Shaw - Ocean Islands, Australian Islands

Hogan Sherrow - Africa, Uganda

Fredrik Dalerum - Africa, South Africa

W. Chris Funk - South America, Ecuador   

Alberto  Galindo-Cardona - Middle America, United States

Rulon W. Clark - North America, California             

Sergio Solari - South America, Colombia, Choco

Peter  Barham - Africa, South Africa 

Jean-Michel Bichain - Africa, Morocco

John B. Thorbjarnarson - South America, Brazil

Fernando Trujillo - South America, Peru

Peter U. Tse - Asia, Indonesia

Tshewang R. Wangchuk - Asia, Bhutan           

Nicholas M. Whitney - North America, United States

On August 24, 1790, the British 44-gun 5th Rate, HMS Endymion, was approaching the southern entrance to the Turks Islands Pass when she struck a previously uncharted coral pinnacle.  The ship shuttered to a stop, fatally wounded but impaled on the pinnacle and unable to sink.  The officers and crew of Endymion fought to save their ship, cutting away the masts and rigging and trying to locate and patch the breech in their hull, but to no avail.  Three days after striking, Endymion slipped off and disappeared beneath the waves, a moment captured in a sketch showing her going down by the head and the last of the crew escaping down a rope dangling from the stern to one of Endymion’s boats.  

Fast forward 217 years… In October of 2007, Dr. Dominique Rissolo, the Waitt Institute’s Executive Director, contacted Ships of Discovery to ask for our help finding a place where the Institute could perform a shakedown cruise to test the equipment installed on their research vessel, preferably on a shipwreck site.  I suggested a survey around Endymion Rock.  With deep water to the East and West and HMS Endymion and another, more recent unidentified “Companion Wreck” clustered in shallow water, Endymion Rock could give the Waitt Institute team a chance to test their deep- and shallow-water towing abilities as well as to work out procedures. 

But the clincher for the idea was the fact that the Turks and Caicos Islands have a National Museum well-stocked with the tools of the underwater archaeologist, which could provide logistics and communications support. 

The survey objectives were simple: deep and shallow water instrument surveys followed by anomaly investigations using the Waitt Institute’s ROV in deep water and SCUBA in shallow water, then accumulating as much documentation on Endymion and the Companion Wreck as possible.  When no deep-water targets were detected, we focused most of our efforts on the two shipwrecks at Endymion Rock.  Having already surveyed Endymion briefly 7 years earlier, I had a short list of features to look for, principally documenting the main battery and determining the wreck’s orientation. Other areas to look for were the shot magazine, small arms locker, galley, and chain pump.

With respect to the main battery, one of the questions we had was: where are all the cannon?  Endymion should have had a main battery of 44 long guns in addition to a number of carronades, yet the most we counted was 22 long guns and 2 carronades.  Had some of the cannons been salvaged?  Was there another part of the wreck site that we had not seen? 

For clarity, I superimposed silhouettes over the three12-ft anchors and 22 cannons in the photo mosaic from our survey in 2000.  The anchors make it clear that Endymion’s bow faced left.  The Waitt Institute survey turned up 6 more cannons and left us with the impression that all the guns are still there on the site, but many of them are invisible, buried underneath other cannons and wreck debris. 

Having given the “Companion Wreck” short shrift during our earlier survey, we were determined to try to identify it. The site is an undersea junkyard with debris spread out over hundreds of feet of the seabed.  The trick would be to find something truly diagnostic.  The four anchors were our first dating clue: they told us that the Companion Wreck went down some time after the introduction of the stockless anchor in the 1880’s.

Combing the site for clues, we discovered that our ROV pilot and underwater robot designer, Mike Cameron, had a hitherto unrealized ability not only to recognize objects of potential diagnostic significance amid all the wreckage, but also to measure and draw them underwater.  His drawings enabled us to match them with illustrations of a similar shaft, hub, and propeller found in a 19th century source.

This group of about 40 or 50 images captures most of the Companion Wreck site.  The ship’s bow came to rest at the upper left, as evidenced by heaps of anchor chain.  The stern lay toward the lower right of the mosaic where we found the engine, or engines, a broken propeller blade, a propeller shaft, and propeller shaft strut.  In between lay a large riveted iron compartment so similar to ones found in deeper water hundreds of meters to the West that we believe they are also part of the Companion Wreck. 

No one realized that the research vessel’s Chief Engineer, New Zealander Peter Dorrington, is something of an amateur marine propulsion historian—until he visited the site and, with a glance at the engines told us that they are very early diesels, probably built between 1910 and 1920.  In one fell stroke he narrowed down our search for the Companion Wreck’s identity from the entire age of steam to a single decade! 

An entry in the Northern Shipwrecks Database appears to be the missing link needed to identify the Companion Wreck as the gas-screw auxillary five-masted schooner General Pershing, a wooden hull vessel built 1918 in Olympia, Washington state, and lost on “Endamion” shoal July 11, 1921.   This brief newspaper account appears to confirm that General Pershing sank on Endymion Reef near Turks Island.  Curiously, the tonnage is only about three quarters of what is listed in the Northern Shipwrecks database.  Equally puzzling is the reference to a cargo of coal—only tiny fragments were found at the site.  How could hundreds of tons of coal disappear? Was it all salvaged somehow shortly after sinking?

The Waitt Institute for Discovery’s Endymion Rock Survey of 2007 was primarily a shakedown and training cruise with limited archaeological aspirations.  As such it was a complete success.  Not only did we succeed in identifying the “companion wreck,” and determining that all of Endymion’s cannons are probably present, but we also laid to rest the persistent rumor that there are other shipwrecks within the Protected Area designated by the Turks and Caicos Islands government around Endymion Rock. But where the expedition succeeded spectacularly was with respect to the cooperation that took place between individuals and entities, and the opportunities that were presented to learn from each other.  Carefully coordinated cooperative efforts based on partnerships like this can make marine archaeological efforts such as this less difficult and expensive.

– Dr. Donald Keith
Lead Archaeologist, Ships of Discovery

The concept of the maritime cultural landscape is at its most basic level the combination of archaeological resources related to maritime activity, whether they are on land and in or on the water.  A maritime cultural landscape can encompass shipwrecks, and associated sites on shore, such as lighthouses, fortifications, docks and wharves, warehouses and shipyards, but it can also include “the natural geography…the details of roads, coasts, routes, harbours, (e. g. the steepness, shallow banks) and the directions of prevailing currents and winds” (Westerdahl 1991 and Westerdahl 1998:2).

Originally conceived by archaeologist Christer Westerdahl to conceptualize the maritime archaeology of Scandinavia, the idea of the “maritime cultural landscape” has been adopted by maritime archaeologists working on a variety of sites around the world, as a means of encompassing within a more holistic framework the complex interrelationship between human (maritime) activity and natural features as expressed in the material record.  

The concept of the maritime cultural landscape provides an ideal framework for assessing the diverse and extensive collection of structures, sites and material culture of the project area.  Collectively, the natural features, human modifications, structures, and associated remains such as discarded materials, and shipwrecks not only represent, but also tell the story of five centuries of maritime activity in and around the entrance to the Río Chagres.  There is also a very real possibility, with the inclusion of pre-Columbian sites known to exist in the project area, to extend the scope of study and interpretation of the Chagres maritime cultural landscape to a 1,000 to 1,500-year span.  While some aspects of that history are of particular significance, it is important to note that all aspects, and all traces of that history, as represented in the archaeological resources, have significance as a complete and collective record of maritime activity in one of the world’s most significant focal points for shipping, Panamá, and in particular, the entrance to the Río Chagres.