A Sudden Wreck: Interdisciplinary Research on the Spring Break Shipwreck, St Johns County, Florida

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2019

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "A Sudden Wreck: Interdisciplinary Research on the Spring Break Shipwreck, St Johns County, Florida," at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In March, high tide deposited a section of a historic vessel on the beach just north of St. Augustine, Florida. Believed to represent a 19th century merchant vessel, the wreckage instantly became a cultural phenomenon, with a daily visitation of over 1,000 people per day during the first week. The wreckage was successfully moved to a local research facility, the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTM-NERR). Researchers from the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeology Maritime Program (LAMP), the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN), the University of South Florida (USF), SEARCH Inc., Flagler College, and the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Sciences examined cultural and biocultural components of the site. This session brings together discussion of the wreckage with consideration of its social context, biological composition, LiDAR analysis of the adjacent coastline, interaction with marine species subsequent to wrecking, and increasing challenges faced by resource managers and researchers to climate change.

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  • Documents (4)

Documents
  • Coming in with a Tide, Going out with a Forklift: The Spring Break Shipwreck Project (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Allyson Ropp.

    This is an abstract from the "A Sudden Wreck: Interdisciplinary Research on the Spring Break Shipwreck, St Johns County, Florida" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Spring Break shipwreck washed ashore just north of St. Augustine in late March 2018. The media presence created a cultural phenomenon of the hull remains with stories and images spreading worldwide. The first four days of the project brought out thousands of people and a drive to...

  • Hull Analysis of the Spring Break Wreck, a Nineteenth-Century Shipwreck Washed Ashore in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Chuck Meide.

    This is an abstract from the "A Sudden Wreck: Interdisciplinary Research on the Spring Break Shipwreck, St Johns County, Florida" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. On 28 March 2018, after several days of foul weather, a large section of articulated hull remains unexpectedly washed ashore at Ponte Vedra Beach in northeast Florida. Around 15 meters long, the timbers represented a substantial section from below the turn of the bilge of a large...

  • Maritime Heritage Management in the Face of Climate Change Impacts: Lessons from the Spring Break Wreck (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Jane Murray. James P. Delgado. Lillian Azevedo.

    This is an abstract from the "A Sudden Wreck: Interdisciplinary Research on the Spring Break Shipwreck, St Johns County, Florida" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Coastal environments are experiencing climate change impacts that include increased and intensified storm events, changing coastlines, and erosion. As a result, resource managers and archaeologists face new challenges dealing with eroding and migrating sites, as well as so-called "beach...

  • A Square Peg in a Round Hole: Wood Analysis from the Spring Break Wreck (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lee A. Newsom. P. Brendan Burke.

    This is an abstract from the "A Sudden Wreck: Interdisciplinary Research on the Spring Break Shipwreck, St Johns County, Florida" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper discusses results of wood analysis performed on samples taken from the Spring Break Wreck, a site comprised of articulated 19th century vessel remains located on Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Analysis included taxonomic assignments of individual hull components, along with...