Hard Science on Hard Steel: Scientific Studies of the USS Arizona

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Hard Science on Hard Steel: Scientific Studies of the USS Arizona," at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The USS Arizona was a Pennsylvania-class battleship that served in the Pacific Fleet during World War II. The vessel was hit multiple times in the first few minutes of the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. A bomb penetrated the deck near the ammunition magazines causing a massive explosion that killed 1,177 servicemen. As stewards of the USS Arizona, the National Park Service (NPS) has developed a novel multidisciplinary scientific research program to manage the site and active memorial. NPS has also collaborated with academic and research institutions to evaluate metallurgical corrosion rates, oil leakage, microbial communities and corrosion, and the structural integrity of the wreck of the battleship. Submerged vessels from World War II provide unprecedented opportunities to study site formation processes, corrosion rates, and to create mass loss models to inform future preservation of modern metal shipwrecks.

Other Keywords
USS Arizona • National Parks • WWII • Iron Corrosion • Modeling • Resource Management • Oil Spill • CORROSION • Battleships • Scientific Reserach

Temporal Keywords
WWII • 20th Century • Modern • 1941 to the present • 1941 - present

Geographic Keywords
Coahuila (State / Territory) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • United States of America (Country) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Nuevo Leon (State / Territory) • Delaware (State / Territory)