Questions about salt conditions and salvage....

[pegleglooker]

Hello everyone,
I have a question about salt conditions, diving and sonar. I live in Southern California and we have a inland sea called the Salton Sea.


It is said to be more salty than the ocean ( Because the Sea has no outlet, water is lost only through evaporation , leaving dissolved salts behind and gradually raising salinity. The Sea's salinity has now reached 44 parts per thousand (ppt), about 25% higher than ocean water.). Is it possible to use some sort of sonar to locate a lost ship at the bottom ( apprx 51 at it's deepest and 31 ft average ). This ship would have been lost between 400-500 yrs ago. It's important to know that this sea was not underwater for the whole time. It completely dried out many times. In 1905 the Colorado River overflowed and refilled the area. It took 2 yrs to fill. Here is a link if you need more info:
http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/salton/SaltonSeaHomePage.html
My questions are, can I use some sort of device to locate the wreck on the bottom and can one dive to recover any items I'm more of a landlock person and am not sure about these things. Please let me know if anyone can shed any light on this I would TOTALLY appreciate it.

Thankx in advance
PLL

[rgecy]

Side Scan Sonar would work fine, but if it has dried up several times and then been filled in again by the Colorado, my gues is that the wreck would probably be silted in and covered completely. Side Scan Sonar will only see whats above the bottom surface, not whats burried.

In 51 feet of water you easily use something like the Humminbird SI units to survey with.

Good Luck,

Robert

[SGTDirk]

And yes one can dive with the higher salinity. It will take more weight to get down. But other than that it should be no different.

[rmptr]

I read some of those 'lost ship in the desert' stories, too, Peg...

Sounds like a fun thing to go lookin' for!

Maybe it's the humminbird 987 or even bigger number some of the fellows have talked about.
They run a grand or better.

Most the info is here in the threads on the forums.

Good luck!
rmptr

[pegleglooker]

Hey all,
It sounds like if it is on or near the surface ( of the bottom ) then that should work. However, What if it is DEEP under the sea bottom Remember, that according to legend, it was between the mid 1500's till the early 1600's that the ship " may " have been lost. Is there anything that would take care of both ??

PLL

[old man]

pegleglooker, There is another device on the market called a sub- bottom profiler. This unit will show what is under the bottom. As long as the material at the bottom of the lake is sand or mud this device will work fine. It just isn't effective in rock or coral.

There are companies out there that rent this equipment, so you don't have to buy it.

[FISHEYE]

I have been to the salton sea before.The lake has a very thick solid clay bottom as well as all around the banks below the sand.I was there in the early 70's when there was a earthquake 100 miles away.It was 4.0 on the richter scale.The whole area around the salton sea shook like jelly because of the clay base.I wasnt far from the water at the time.All the camper trailers that were parked there were rocking like boats.And the quake destroyed the sand castle i made

[rmptr]

Yup, very expensive equipment! Yikes!

and special software to use with it, AND interpretation of the scans is needed, too.

Best of luck!

rmptr