Gulfoil: Ghost in the Gulf
Author(s): W. Shawn Arnold
Year: 2013
Summary
The oil tanker Gulfoil is located in 534 meters of water. Built by New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey, Gulfoil is the first oil tanker to be built in the United States of America using British engineer Joseph Isherwood’s system of ship construction. The Isherwood system used longitudinal framing instead of traditional transverse frames making the ship stronger and lighter than previous construction methods. Sunk by German submarine U-506 in the Gulf of Mexico in 1942, the archaeological site offers a unique signature to the catastrophic event. Comparing the historic record with the deep-water site signature provides insight to the ships last moments and discrepancies in the first hand accounts.
Cite this Record
Gulfoil: Ghost in the Gulf . W. Shawn Arnold. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Leicester, England, U.K. 2013 ( tDAR id: 428629)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Joseph Isherwood
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site signature
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World War II
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
1912-1942
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 220