NEW ORLEANS — An oil company exploration crew’s chance discovery of a 200-year-old shipwreck in a little-charted stretch of the Gulf of Mexico is yielding a trove of information to scientists, who say it’s one of the most well-preserved old wrecks ever found in the gulf.
“When we saw it, we were all just astonished because it was beautifully preserved, and by that I mean for a 200-year-old shipwreck,” said Jack Irion, maritime archaeologist with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in New Orleans.
Video shows muskets and gin bottles littering the gulf bottom. Also discovered were an anchor, cannons and muskets.
Scientists say the ship is about 200 miles off the northern Gulf Coast and at a depth of about 4,000 feet. The depth has kept it largely undisturbed during two centuries of storms and hurricanes. And although most of the ship’s wood dissolved long ago, the copper hull and its contents remain in place.
Researchers think the ship probably sank during a storm. The Associated Press
