-
- SYDNEY (AFP)
- Treasure
worth 500,000 US dollars has been recovered in the Gulf of
Mexico from
a sunken Spanish galleon believed to still contain tens
times as much,
an Australian firm revealed Monday.
-
- Maritime Archaeological
Investments Ltd. (MAIL), formed
to capitalise on advances in underwater
recovery technology, also announced
moves to fund further exploration
of the "Santa Margarita", which
sank en route from Cuba to
Spain in 1622.
-
- The treasure already recovered includes 205 silver "pieces
of eight", a rare two escudo gold coin alone worth 24,000 US dollars,
three gold chains and a gold and sapphire ring.
-
- They are now in a Key West bank
vault after being recovered
during an exploratory mission last month by
a five-man US team led by Florida
diver Andy Matroci.
-
- MAIL chairman,
Adelaide businessman Rod Hartley, said
he had been asked by Matroci if
he would sponsor recovery of the Santa
Maria's main cargo if Matroci
was able to prove what it contained.
-
- Using equipment such as atomic
imaging cameras and magnetometers
the team located the Margarita at a
depth of 20 metres (65 feet).
-
- "On their second dive, they came up with 100 silver
coins and another hundred or so the next day and this was only a proving
trial," Hartley said.
-
- The Margarita project followed MAIL's involvement in
salvaging another Spanish galleon, the Senora del Pilar de Saragosa y
Santiago,
which sank off Guam in the Pacific in 1690 with a cargo
believed to be
worth about 500 million US dollars.
-
- The gold and silver had been
plundered by the Spanish
in South America, taken aboard great armadas
of large galleons once a year
from Cuba west to the Philippines for
trade with China or back to Spain
via the Gulf of Mexico and the
Atlantic.
-
- "In this particular year, 1622, an armada of 28
vessels on
their way to Spain were hit by a massive storm and eight of
those sank
in the shallows of the Marquesas Keys in the Gulf of Mexico,"
said
Hartley.
-
- One of these ships, the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, was
located
and treasure worth almost 500 million US dollars was salvaged in
1985.
A second ship, the Santa Margarita, was also discovered in relatively
shallow water.
-
- Hartley, the 62-year-old former chief executive of South
Australia's Department of State Development, said the manifest valued its
remaining cargo at up to 100 million Australian dollars (52 million
US).
-
- Modern technological developments had put it within reach
of
small remotely-operated submarines as well as divers using a helium-based
breathing medium.
-
- MAIL, which has exclusive access to what it says are
among the
most promising known wrecks in the world, has been asked to take
the
lead role in the Margarita project.
-
- The company has lodged an
official document with the
Australian Securities and Investments
Commission to enable it to offer
shares to fund further recovery
missions.
-
- "This document requires full disclosure of the investment
risks involved so that investors can properly balance them against the
potential high rewards," Hartley told AFP.
-
- MAIL is investing 1.5 million
dollars and needs another
5 million dollars -- the maxium permissable
by the commission -- from investors.
-
- "Advances in technology
have put many ancient wrecks
within our grasp," he said.
"However, until now there hasn't
been an affordable way for small
companies such as ours to involve the
general public in this sort of
investment.
-
- "Some of our technology scans the ocean floor to
give
elevated views of objects the size of a coffee table, other equipment
we use locates buried metal objects at great depths and can differentiate,
for example, between gold and iron."
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by
TheHostPros
|