Mystery at sea: Shipwreck off Galveston probed in satellite salvage adventure 
 
 GALVESTON, Texas — A shipwreck undetected in the briny deep of the Gulf of Mexico for two centuries has been discovered off the coast of Texas, where archeologists using robotic submarines have launched a high-tech salvage operation. 
 
 Inside a control room on the campus of Texas A&M Galveston, a team of nautical archeologists and biologists are coordinating the exploration of the wreckage discovered by a Shell Oil survey crew about 150 miles off the coast. Satellite video and audio signals keep them in communication with the crew staffing a vessel stationed above the debris field, which sits about 3000 feet below the surface of the water. 
 
 Images beamed back from the floor of the gulf show muskets, cannon, clothing, plates and platters that went down with the ship. One especially striking artifact retrieved by the robotic arms: A sealed bottle filled with bright yellow ginger, which was used as a treatment for seasickness. 
 
 “We have a lead plate,” said Tom Oertling, a nautical archeologist with Texas A&M Galveston. “And sitting on top of the lead plate is the galley stove, which has fallen back over on its back. The lead plate, we think, was to protect the ship from embers that fell out of the stove.” 
 
 The discovery has brought a team of scientists and explorers together for an expedition broadcast live to an audience watching on theNautilus Live website. Texas A&M Galveston, renowned for its oceanographic expertise, is working with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration using a vessel borrowed from Bob Ballard, the famed underwater explorer who found the wreckage of the Titanic. 
 
 With the discovery comes a mystery: Where did the doomed vessel come from and how did it she and her crew go down in the gulf? 
 
 The artifacts apparently date from the early 1800s, a time when Galveston infamously became the operations base for the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte. Some of the debris apparently came from Spain and Mexico, but the guns appear to be British. 
 
 Sprawled across a conference table in the control room is a large drawing of the debris field showing a rough outline of the ship. Anything found at the site is marked on the drawing, which brings a sense of organization to the stuff scattered around the floor of the gulf. 
 
 “It’s really a mystery being put together,” said Dr.William Kiene, associate science coordinator for NOAA’s Office of Marine Sanctuaries, who compared the salvage operation to “a CSI adventure.” 
 
 Beyond the archeological treasures, the shipwreck is also a biological phenomenon that’s attracted its own colonies of sea life. Everything from crabs to colorful anemones have made homes around the wreckage. 
 
 “Shipwrecks actually create life,” said Steve Gittings, the science coordinator for NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary Program. “They come back to life after whatever goes down with them goes down. So this ship has 200 years of life on it.” 
 
 What’s especially remarkable to the experts involved is their unique ability to stay on land and actively participate in a salvage operation happening at sea. Satellite links allow them to watch the underwater robot vehicles pluck away at the artifacts, pulling them out of the debris and placing them in boxes that carry them to the surface. By radio, they can relay instructions to the ship’s crew controlling the salvage robot. 
 
 “This is an amazing opportunity for the scientist to stay at home,” Oertling said. “So we don’t have to go there. We can go home at night and have dinner and sleep in our own beds, which is great. But it’s as though we are right there.” 
 
 University officials hope this operation sets a precedent that will make the Galveston campus a base for future remote salvage operations. 
 
 “Instead of having ten or twenty researchers out on a ship, you can have 100 or 200 or a couple of thousand all over the world,” said Gilbert Rowe, regents professor at Texas A&M Galveston. “That’s what makes this a really unique thing.” 
 
 The ship bearing the artifacts retrieved from the site is expected to arrive in Galveston on Thursday. Among the tantalizing items retrieved from the site: A leather-bound book that somehow survived for two centuries on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The nautical archeologists working on this salvage operation hope it will offer clues to solving the mystery behind the shipwreck. ||||| Page 1 of 1 
 
 While most of the ship's wood has long since disintegrated, copper that sheathed its hull beneath the waterline remains. The copper, green from a century on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, retains the vessel's form. 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (Texas A&M photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 NOAA's Seirios Camera Platform, operating above the Little Hercules ROV, images the ROV and an anchor inside the hull of a copper-sheathed shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. The wood has nearly all disintegrated after more than a century on the seafloor. (Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.) 
 
 Underwater "rivers" and ponds of liquid brine were discovered during the expedition. When enough pressure is applied to buried salt by overlying seafloor sediments, the salt flows up near the seafloor where it mixes with seawater and dissolves into brine, which is then brought to the seafloor by buoyant gas and oil. Because brine is denser than seawater, it flows along the seafloor as rivers and streams, often collecting in massive pools to form brine lakes. Note the corals and numerous sea anemones on the banks of this brine river. (Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.) 
 
 While most of the ship's wood has long since disintegrated, copper that sheathed the hull beneath the waterline as a protection against marine-boring organisms remains, leaving a copper shell retaining the form of the ship. The copper has turned green due to oxidation and chemical processes over more than a century on the seafloor. Oxidized copper sheathing and possible draft marks are visible on the bow of the ship. (Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.) 
 
 A variety of artifacts inside the ship's hull relates either to daily life on board or to the ship’s cargo. Artifacts include ceramic plates, platters, and bowls; and glass liquor, wine, medicine, and food storage bottles of many shapes and colors (some with the contents still sealed inside).(Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.) 
 
 An anemone lives on top of a musket that lies across a whole group of muskets at the site of the shipwreck. (Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.) 
 
 An octocoral, as evidenced by the eight tentacles seen on its polyps, is observed during the NOAA mission to the wreck. (Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program.) 
 
 Items and sea life found in a Gulf shipwreck being explored by Texas A&M University at Galveston research scientists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts. (NOAA photo) 
 
 A 200-year-old shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico is divulging secrets about a bygone era but it still holds mysteries, researchers say. 
 
 Scientists, archaeologists and students from Texas A&M University at Galveston have joined National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experts investigating the wreck, which lies 4,300 deep about 150 miles from Galveston. 
 
 The site was discovered by a Shell oil and gas survey crew in 2011. 
 
 Researchers from The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University in San Marcos are also helping with the excavation, school officials said. 
 
 The most recent exploration of the wreck ended Wednesday, when a research team on the agency vessel Nautilus finished recovering artifacts. 
 
 Below the surface: See the shipwreck off the coast of Galveston 
 
 Items found on the ship included anchors, navigational instruments, muskets, pistols, swords, cannons, glass bottles, ceramic plates and clothing, according to the agency and the universities. 
 
 The Nautilus is scheduled to return to Galveston on Thursday, and the artifacts will be taken to A&M's Cultural Resources Laboratory at the Riverside Campus in College Station, a university spokeswoman said. 
 
 To help with the 24-hour recovery expedition, Texas A&M built an exploration command center on campus so agency and university scientists could monitor and help guide the expedition in real time, the university said in a news release Wednesday. 
 
 The shore-based station worked with the technicians onboard the Nautilus to advise and help direct the recovery of artifacts, the release said. Communications included live audio and high-definition video. 
 
 Researchers still haven't identified what type of ship it was or where it came from, but they date the artifacts to between 1800 and 1830. Evidence retrieved so far suggests the vessel was a warship transporting arms and soldiers, possibly to support either Spain or Mexico in their war with each other. 
 
 Besides Spanish and Mexican artifacts, cannons believed to be British were found. ||||| Researchers say a shipwreck has been discovered 150 miles off the coast of Galveston that could yield insight into Texas' fight for independence. 
 
 Officials with Texas A&M University at Galveston and Texas State University say the recovery expedition of the two-masted ship concluded Wednesday. It may have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico 200 years ago. 
 
 The ship was some 4,300 feet below the surface. Items discovered aboard the vessel include muskets, swords, cannons and clothing. 
 
 Scientists say it may have been a warship or a vessel transporting arms and soldiers. It may have supported the Mexican army during the fight for Texas independence or been sailing to provide arms to the Texans. 
 
 A Shell oil and gas survey crew first detected the wreck in 2011.
– Insights into Texas' War for Independence may have just bubbled up from 4,300 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. A mystery shipwreck 150 miles off the coast of Galveston—found carrying muskets, swords, and cannons—may have been transporting weapons and soldiers to help in the battle, the AP reports. But while most artifacts from the 200-year-old wreck are from Spain and Mexico, some look British, and scientists aren't sure what type of ship it is and where exactly it came from, the Houston Chronicle reports. "It's really a mystery being put together," one of the salvagers told KHOU, calling the expedition, "a CSI adventure." Ceramic plates, anchors, clothing, glass bottles—including one sealed, full of yellow ginger—and even an intact leather-bound book were also recovered in the expedition by Texas A&M scientists using robot submarines. While it's also a mystery what sent the ship down, KHOU offers a clue: It hit the depths around the time that notorious pirate Jean Lafitte called Galveston home port.