Page 8: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2016)

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NOAA Case Study

Remains of 1800s Whaling Fleet Found

OAA archaeologists have discovered the battered than 1,200 whalers stranded at the top of the world until they hulls of two 1800s whaling ships nearly 144 years could be rescued by seven ships of the ? eet standing by about

Nafter they and 31 others sank off the Arctic coast of 80 miles to the south in open water off Icy Cape. No one died

Alaska in one of the planet’s most unexplored ocean regions. in the incident but it is cited as one of the major causes of the

The shipwrecks, and parts of other ships, that were found are demise of commercial whaling in the United States.

most likely the remains of 33 ships trapped by pack ice close With less ice in the Arctic as a result of climate change, ar- to the Alaskan Arctic shore in September 1871. The whaling chaeologists now have more access to potential shipwreck sites captains had counted on a wind shift from the east to drive the than ever before. In September, a team of archaeologists from ice out to sea as it had always done in years past. the Maritime Heritage Program in NOAA’s Of? ce of National

The ships were destroyed in a matter of weeks, leaving more Marine Sanctuaries scoured a 30-mile stretch of coastline in

Abandonment of the whalers in the Arctic Ocean, September 1871, including the George, Gay- head, and Concordia. This illustation originally ran in Harper’s Weekly in 1871. (Credit: Robert Schwemmer Maritime Library)

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