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Using the scientific equivalent of a fine-toothed comb, University marine scientists are part of a state team painstakingly studying a sailing ship that may have been the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard.
Researchers now strongly believe -- but have not proven -- the vessel was the "Queen Anne's Revenge," seized from French slavers by the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. That ship went down near Beaufort (N.C.) Inlet in 1718 a few months before Teach's death, and the wreck was discovered in November 1996.
Investigating the three-centuries'-old shipwreck has involved scientific clues from events such as atomic bomb explosions in the 1950s and 1960s.
John T. Wells, professor and director of the Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City; Christopher Martens, William B. Aycock professor of marine sciences; and Neils Lindquist, associate professor at the institute, joined the effort as a public service and out of "pure curiosity."
The Carolina team got involved in this project at the request of the state's underwater archaeology.
"We felt that being able to offer some expertise the unit didn't already have was a great opportunity for us and for the state, especially since the wreck is practically right at the institute's back door," Wells said.
A geologist, Wells has been electronically digitizing old maps and marine charts of the wreck site and the surrounding area produced since the early 1700s to compare with modern charts and conditions. One goal is to create a history of changes over time such as shifting sands and a three-foot rise in sea level.
"We are trying not only to understand what happened to the sea and the shore in the area, but also to see the frequency of change, what hurricanes did, how sand shoals moved, how barrier islands such as Shackleford eroded and how Beaufort Inlet naturally realigned itself over time," he said.
When completed, the work -- delayed by Hurricane Bonnie -- will be the most rigorous analysis of maps and charts of the area ever done, Wells said.
Also, he is studying the ebb-tide delta -- a huge "halo" of sand-- that sits at the inlet mouth and would block ship traffic if not for frequent dredging.
Recent data, which already suggest the wreck site silted in and was less than a meter deep in the early 1800s, may provide clues to why the ship sank. It now sits under 25 feet of water.
Martens took radiocarbon-dates on wood samples from the hull and anchor stocks brought up in October and other organic material such as horsehair forced into cracks between planks to seal the hull.
"Because of its extreme accuracy, we are using the accelerator mass spectrometer facility at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod to date these valuable samples," Martens said. "Since the ship sank in the early 1700s, we expect the oldest wood to be between 300 and 400 years old."
A second effort is to establish whether artifacts such as ballast stones and hull planks shifted in the last 50 years. Since radioisotopes such as cesium-137 and plutonium-239 and 240 from atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950s have accumulated in most marine sediments worldwide, Martens and colleagues should be able to detect any later wreck movement by analyzing sediments cored from beneath the oak hull.
"We won't find the bomb-produced radioisotopes directly under the hull or stones unless they have moved due to storms or other events," he said. "That should tell us something about the impact of storms. It also is possible that burrowing organisms excavated under the hull."
Lindquist is studying corals and various encrusting organisms on the remaining wood and artifacts that have been recovered such as cannons, anchors, bottles, pieces of brass and ballast stones.
He hopes to determine which parts of the wreck have been exposed periodically as waves and tides moved sediments around and over it and when the exposure occurred.
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