New Thread.........veeeerrry old problem.....Mercury on our seabed.

[SADS 669]

I am very interested in putting together a rough list of shipwrecks that either do have or probably have Mercury still on board ( outbound to the new world.)

Let's do an honest Crowdsourcing thing here on this thread and see how many wrecks we can locate.

Rough locations are OK, no one is after " your wreck" but it would be very interesting to find out how many are out there, with the potential to continue harming us all.

Just asking for some honest help here, and not trying to steal any wreck locations, I am interested ( and maybe we all should be) in how BIG the problem is or could be.

 

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[Red James Cash]

This could help you out.

2008 Museum Website for DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum - The Quicksilver Galleons

 

[SADS 669]

RJC you are a Champion, great start thanks,

I also think the USA needs to know particularly what Mercury is possibly washing ashore with the currents all flowing past you guys.....and some currents and tides terminating on your shores

 

[old man]

This could help you out.


2008 Museum Website for DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum - The Quicksilver Galleons

Nice post. I wonder if anyone else ever found a wreck with Mercury on it?

 

[SADS 669]

Or knows roughly where one is or is supposed to be, we should log all possible Mercury locations....

 

[s.c.shooter]

I just read an article online where they are trying to raise a Spanish war ship that sunk and the article implied that there is possibly a chest of gold and mercury on board.

 

[Colombiapictures]

Nearly every Spanish merchant vessel had some mercury on board. Mercury was needed for the extraction of gold and silver. If a ship was taking a certain quantity of mercury TO some port, you can bet that an equivalent quantity of gold or silver was going to be shipped FROM that port.

Contraband gold and silver was often shipped as an agglomerate, directly, without being molten down into an ingot. The silver ingot in this form was called "Plata Pina".

If you work carefully on any colonial time period shipwreck, you will come across some mercury. However, if you use blowers the chances are you will never see any, as you disperse it too much.

Chances are high you have some mercury in the form of silver amalgamate in your mouth.

In the 19th and 20th century mercury was used to produce primer caps, therefore mercury was an important strategic metal and shipped on many ships during that time period. See wikipedia article below.

Mercury(II) fulminate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you talk too much about mercury, the NSA will start looking at you for the reasons above.

 

[SADS 669]

That's Ok ( NSA wise) TD, .........." I love America! "

 

[Red James Cash]

That's Ok ( NSA wise) TD, .........." I love America! "

They dont.

 

[old man]

Nearly every Spanish merchant vessel had some mercury on board. Mercury was needed for the extraction of gold and silver. If a ship was taking a certain quantity of mercury TO some port, you can bet that an equivalent quantity of gold or silver was going to be shipped FROM that port.

Contraband gold and silver was often shipped as an agglomerate, directly, without being molten down into an ingot. The silver ingot in this form was called "Plata Pina".

If you work carefully on any colonial time period shipwreck, you will come across some mercury. However, if you use blowers the chances are you will never see any, as you disperse it too much.

Chances are high you have some mercury in the form of silver amalgamate in your mouth.

In the 19th and 20th century mercury was used to produce primer caps, therefore mercury was an important strategic metal and shipped on many ships during that time period. See wikipedia article below.

Mercury(II) fulminate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you talk too much about mercury, the NSA will start looking at you for the reasons above.

I don't think the NSA is going to care. People are trying to find those wrecks to clean up the Toxic Mercury. To clean up the environment.
If the NSA was interested? They are invited to be crew members on the boat.

 

[SADS 669]

Old Man, as an aside I have a friend very high up in NOAA ( you would probably call her a Fed.)

She suggested I ask the TN guys how big the Mercury issue is. Hence the post......

TD makes a fantastic point about blowers though and dispersing it.......

 

[old man]

Old Man, as an aside I have a friend very high up in NOAA ( you would probably call her a Fed.)

She suggested I ask the TN guys how big the Mercury issue is. Hence the post......

Sads669, It would be big for all treasure salvage people. If they realized that if Spain and UNESCO were sued in the International Court for the Clean up of Spains ships that sunk with Mercury. Spain and UNESCO, probably would drop their claim on treasure wrecks. Which would open up treasure hunting the way it used to be. Finder's keepers.

 

[SADS 669]

Quick Mercury story for you to make you laugh.

When I was a Military Police Dog Handler, I made a coffee and put in milk and two sugars. Needing something to stir it with, I reach for a dog thermometer and stirred away......

Yes, you have guessed it the thermometer broke and when I had finished it and looked at all the silver globules at the bottom of the cup.

I then went to the medical centre and they made me puke for what seamed like hours......well if you are gonna be dumb.......you better be tough...sigh

 

[SADS 669]

Yeh old Man I hear you, do you think reporting a bunch of wrecks laden with Mercury would do that??

 

[old man]

Yeh old Man I hear you, do you think reporting a bunch of wrecks laden with Mercury would do that??

No, I think an attorney looking to make a lot of money with a lawsuit, would sue Spain and UNESCO.

Look at the billions of dollars that BP had to pay out for that oil spill in the gulf of mexico.

A toxic clean up, would cost Spain and UNESCO, an awful lot of money. I'm sure the EPA would also chime in, if it went to court.

I heard that Spain is in fear of a lawsuit over this already.

 

[SADS 669]

Not many lawyers like that around then?? Ha ha ha.

 

[Darren in NC]

Interesting that Sea Hunt is usually pointed at when screaming about Spain's claim to the La Galga and Juno wrecks. According to Wikipedia sources it was Mel Fisher's quest that spurred it on...
The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act, also known as the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, was passed into law due to severe damage to some 3,000 historic wrecks on the Great Lakes and other areas of the coast that had been salvaged, and in some cases ruined, by treasure hunters in the 1970s. The particular case of the salvage of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, an historic and culturally significant wreck off the coast of Florida, in which the State of Florida was unable to prevent legal salvage operations due to a lack of a suitable law that would disallow it, spurred action at the federal level to address the situation.

 

[Darren in NC]

Prior to that, this was good enough (click to enlarge)...

View attachment 1843 law of salvage.bmp

 

[Jolly Mon]

It would be nice to be able to go after Spain for toxic clean-up, but the reality is that shipwreck mercury is probably a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall problem. And I would imagine the lions share of that is locked up in sediments. I would bet that more mercury was precipitated into the oceans last year alone from coal fired plants in China than was lost by shipwreck during the entire colonial period.

 

[old man]

It would be nice to be able to go after Spain for toxic clean-up, but the reality is that shipwreck mercury is probably a tiny, tiny fraction of the overall problem. And I would imagine the lions share of that is locked up in sediments. I would bet that more mercury was precipitated into the oceans last year alone from coal fired plants in China than was lost by shipwreck during the entire colonial period.

Jolly Mon, you are probably right about the coal.
However, I wish CaptBilly would chime in. I think he said that the Mercury from the ship in Samana Bay has caused numerous environmental and medical disorders to the local population in that area.

As Darren pointed out. This all started over greed from Spain, when the Atocha was found.
Treasure salvors need a leg to stand on, if treasure salvage is to even exist in the future.
Spain doesn't complain when someone wants to salvage one of their wrecks with no treasure. Why? I thought their complaint was about cultural heritage? No it's about treasure. Well it's about greed, so they should also be held responsible for the mercury on the bottom. It affects fish which people eat and causes environmental and medical problems. They should be held accountable for that. If treasure hunters don't want to ban together on this issue. Treasure hunting will go the way the Dinosaur went.