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Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium

Date: Monday, January 27, 2003

Speaker: Claire Peachey

Title: From the Seabed to the Laboratory: Archaeology of the Civil War Submarine H.L. Hunley

Abstract

On February 17, 1864, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley became the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship, the Union blockade vessel USS Housatonic. Hunley was never seen again after the engagement, until May, 1995, when underwater archaeologists located the vessel under 3-5 feet of mud outside Charleston harbor, not far from where the remains of Housatonic lie. In 2000, a team of engineers and archaeologists raised Hunley from the seabed, and brought it to a conservation laboratory in North Charleston. The submarine has been opened up and the mud excavated to reveal the remains of the eight crewmen and their possessions. Details of the construction of the submarine are also being revealed, although the protective marine concretion still covers most of the metal. Team members have utilized different mapping and imaging technologies to learn more about the construction, and are beginning research into the metallurgy and corrosion of the wrought and cast iron components to develop the most effective conservation process for this complex historic vessel.

Speaker

Claire Peachey has a graduate degree in Anthropology/Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University, and in Archaeological Conservation from the University of London. She has been working on archaeological excavations since 1981, primarily in the eastern Mediterranean region. Since 1998 she has been Head Conservator for the Underwater Archaeology branch of the U.S. Naval Historical Center in Washington, DC, and was a Deputy Field Manager on the Hunley Recovery Project. 


Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Brent Warner


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov

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