Pushing the Boundaries: Technology-Driven Exploration of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary

Summary

During the summer of 2017, archaeologists from Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary led a series of partnerships to test technologically based methodologies for exploring and rapidly assessing submerged cultural resources. First, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) mapped shallow water areas and image extant archaeological materials. Next, in a sequential series of field campaigns, researchers conducted a wide-area survey to located and document historic vessel remains. The first campaign utilized an interferometric sonar system to survey a 94 square mile offshore area. Next, a sonar-equipped autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) produced detailed imagery of sonar contacts from the previous survey. The final campaign produced photogrammetric models of the same targets, taken from diver-sourced photographs for comparison with the acoustically generated models. The results of these tests demonstrate how technological development among remote sensing and autonomous systems can greatly benefit archaeological field research and cultural resource management.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions) 2018   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 582