Caribbean Ocean Floor Expedition Discovers Six Uncharted Shipwrecks

A recent expedition composed of researchers and robots designed to map certain regions of the Caribbean Sea’s floor has discovered six uncharted shipwrecks.

The three-week-long mission used special deep-sea robots to map out deep ocean floors in the region in an effort to better understand the coral reef system and spawning at such depths. In addition to mapping out much new territory, the scientists stumbled across six never-before seen shipwrecks that had them buzzing even more than the main goal of the trip.

"What we saw was truly exciting. Finding one shipwreck would have been great, but locating six was a total surprise," said Tim Battista, an oceanographer with the Center for Coastal Monitoring. "The wrecks seemed to serve as a refuge for fish and other marine life. In several instances we saw schools of fish, sharks and turtles."

In addition to the exciting wreck discovery, the scientists logged over 400 hours at sea, mapping nearly 60 square miles of ocean floor between the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. If they found six new wrecks in just 400 hours and 60 square miles, just imagine how much more history waits hidden beneath the waves.