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

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.