Casualties, Corrosion, and Climate Change: USS Arizona and Potentially Polluting Shipwrecks
Author(s): Jeneva Wright
Year: 2017
Summary
USS Arizona, a steel-hulled battleship sunk in Pearl Harbor, HI on 7 December 1941, is an iconic American shipwreck, a war grave and memorial, and is among many shipwreck sites that contain large amounts of potential marine pollutants. Unlike most similar sites, however, USS Arizona has been the subject of long-term and ongoing corrosion studies aimed at understanding and modeling the nature of structural changes to the hull. Gaining a detailed understanding of the interaction between the marine environment and corrosion analysis is essential for site management, particularly in the face of potentially dramatic environmental shifts stimulated by climate change. This paper explores how research from USS Arizona might inform the management of other metal-hulled shipwrecks, assist in the identification of climate change threats, and help us grasp the complex and sobering interaction of rapidly changing marine environments, shipwrecks containing pollutants, and basic corrosion parameters.
Cite this Record
Casualties, Corrosion, and Climate Change: USS Arizona and Potentially Polluting Shipwrecks. Jeneva Wright. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017 ( tDAR id: 435482)
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Keywords
General
Climate Change
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CORROSION
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marine pollutants
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
1945-present
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): 546