Its major roles include:
-
Inventory,
mapping and assessment of underwater cultural resources in the National
Park System.
-
Development
of plans for management, preservation and recreational use of submerged cultural resources.
-
Coordination
with other agencies on submerged resources throughout U.S. Territories.
-
Development
of resource models designed to meet requirements of agency managers.
-
Work
with professional and sport diving organizations regarding submerged
cultural resources in national park areas.
-
International
cooperation with other countries on similar resource problems
- Develop GIS-based, integrated cultural and natural resource data to be utilized at the park level for survey, inventory and evaluation.
To expand its capability, the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit works extensively with other institutions. In a project with the U.S. Navy, the Unit has surveyed the U.S.S. Arizona and U.S.S. Utah sites a Pearl Harbor, and has begun to locate and map ships and planes in Palau and in the War in the Pacific Historical Park in Guam. And in a joint effort with the Ocean Sciences Research Institute, the Unit is developing a stabilization plan for the H.M.S. Fowey site in Biscayne National Park, and is surveying the numerous historic shipwrecks in Dry Tortugas National Park. The National Geographic Society has provided robotic equipment for deep, unmanned dives off Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior, and the U.S. Coast Guard provides logistic support both in the Great Lakes and on the coast(s). For more than half of its history, America was explored and settled, and its commerce was conducted almost solely by ships. By galleon, bark and shallop. . . by sloop and brigantine. . . the New World was explored, and the peoples of the Old World engaged in the greatest migration in human history. Inevitably, there were losses of ships to storms and coastlines, to war and accident. Each wreck became a time capsule, and each added itself and sometimes its contents to the accumulating history of mankind buried by sand and water. These features lay largely unattended and forgotten, until new technologies permitted access to them and brought renewed awareness of what exists beneath the waves. This new accessibility also brought the curious and the treasure seekers, and inevitably, a loss of knowledge about America's past.
Hundreds of these sites lie within areas managed by the National Park Service. In all, 59 parks have identified important submerged cultural resources within their boundaries creating an underwater realm the size of Yellowstone National Park. And more are discovered every year. The documentation and protection of these resources is an enormous undertaking.
