Treasure explorers recover 61 tons of silver bullion in waters three miles deep

Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 06:40 UTC

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Odyssey Marine Exploration said it has recovered more than 61 tons of silver bullion this month from a depth of nearly three miles. This recovery of bullion from the SS Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo ship that sank in February 1941, consists of 1,574 silver ingots weighing about 1,100 ounces each or almost 1.8 million troy ounces in total, sets a new record for the deepest and largest precious metal recovery from a shipwreck. The silver has been transported to a secure facility in UK. Read full article

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ChrisR
No wonder TMBOA wanted ALL the Atlantic for The Dark Country!
Jul 24th, 2013 - 05:19 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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GeoffWard2
Oh, yes!
Takes you back to the days of Blackbeard.
Jul 24th, 2013 - 06:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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lsolde
80% seems like a hefty fee, until you realise the work that Odyssey have done & the fact that 20% for the original owners(UK Govt?) is better than 0%.
A pity we don't have the technology to economically raise all steel wrecks as the scrap value would be enormous plus removing shipping hazards from shallower waters.
Also cleaning up our mess from Mother Earth.
Jul 24th, 2013 - 07:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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ChrisR
@ 3 lsolde

“A pity we don't have the technology to economically raise all steel wrecks as the scrap value would be enormous”

But what about the ecology? After only a few months most wrecks get inhabited by all sorts of marine life and in America they deliberately strip old ships of anything harmful, cut holes in bulkheads for access and sink them to be marine ‘parks’ for divers to dive on and see for themselves marine creatures close up.

And there is no way war graves could be disturbed.

But with the silver it's even simpler: 20% of nothing is still nothing. Don’t overlook they won it on competitive tender!
Jul 24th, 2013 - 09:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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lsolde
Of course, Chris, l would not disturb war graves, although their souls have departed.
What l proposed is academic anyway as we have no cheap way of recovering very deep wrecks.
l think shallow wrecks should be removed if possible.
l read somewhere that the English channel sea bed is literally littered with wrecks.
Jul 25th, 2013 - 06:37 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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