Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is a retired US Naval officer and an oceanography professor at the University of Rhode Island best known for his work in underwater archeology: maritime archeology and shipwreck archaeology. He was best known for the discovery of the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the Bismarck warship in 1989, and the Yorktown aircraft carrier in 1998. He found the wreck of John F. Kennedy PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved his crew. He led ocean exploration in the E/V Nautilus.
Video Robert Ballard
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Ballard grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California to be the mother of German heritage and father of the British heritage. He has attributed his initial interest in underwater exploration to reading the novel Twenty Thousand Underwater League, living in the ocean of San Diego, and his fascination with a breakthrough expedition from bathyscaphe
Ballard began working for Ocean Systems Group of Andreas Rechnitzer at North American Aviation in 1962 when his father, Chet, chief engineer at the North American Minuteman missile program, helped him get a part-time job. In North America, he worked on North America's failed proposal to build Alvin submarine for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
In 1965, Ballard graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry and geology. While a student in Santa Barbara, California, he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and also completed the US Army ROTC program, giving him commission of an Army officer in Army Intelligence. His first bachelor's degree (MS, 1966) was in geophysics from the University of Hawaii Geophysics Institute where he trained dolphins and whales. Subsequently, he returned to Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation.
Ballard is working towards Ph.D. in marine geology at the University of Southern California in 1967 when he was called for an active duty. At his request, he was transferred from the Army to the US Navy as a marine expert. The Navy assigned him a liaison between the Naval Research Office and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
After leaving active duty and entering the Naval Reserves in 1970, Ballard continued to work at Woods Hole to persuade organizations and people, mostly scientists, to fund and use Alvin for underwater research. Four years later he received his Ph.D. in geology and marine geophysics at the University of Rhode Island.
Ballard's first dive in a submarine was at Ben Franklin (PX-15) in 1969 off the coast of Florida during the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition. In the summer of 1970, he began the Maine Bay field mapping project for his doctoral dissertation. He uses a wind rifle that sends sound waves underwater to determine the basic seabed and submersible structure Alvin , which is used to locate and recover samples from the bedrock.
During the summer of 1975, Ballard participated in a French-American expedition called Phere looking for hydrothermal vents over the Atlantic Central Ridge, but the expedition found no active ventilation. A 1979 expedition was aided by retractable camera slides capable of taking pictures from the ocean floor, making it easier to locate ventilation.
When Alvin checked one of the sites they found, the scientists observed the black smoke coming out of the vents, something not observed in GalÃÆ'¡pagos Rift. Ballard and geophysicist Jean Francheteau descended on Alvin the day after the black smoker was first observed. They were able to take accurate temperature readings from active vents (previously dive thermometers had melted), and recorded 350 Â ° C (662 Â ° F). They continued to search for more ventilation along the East Pacific Rise between 1980 and 1982.
Maps Robert Ballard
Military career
Ballard joined the United States Army in 1965 through an Army Reserve Officer Training program. He was appointed as an intelligence officer and initially received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve. When called to active duty in 1967, he was asked to fulfill his obligations in the United States Navy. His request was approved, and he was transferred to the Reserve in the active backup task list. After completing his active duty obligations in 1970, he was returned to a reserve status, where he remained for most of his military career, called only for mandatory training and special assignment. He retired from the Navy as commander in 1995 after reaching the limit of legal services.
Marine Archeology
While Ballard has been interested in the ocean from an early age, his work at Woods Hole and his scuba diving experience from Massachusetts spurred interest in shipwrecks and their exploration. His work in the Navy has been involved assisting in the development of small, unmanned submersible that can be tethered and controlled from surface ships, and equipped with lighting, camera, and manipulator arms. In early 1973, he saw this as a way of searching for the wreck of the Titanic ship. In 1977, he led his first expedition, which was unsuccessful.
RMS Titanic
In the summer of 1985, Ballard was on a French research ship Le SuroÃÆ'®t , using a sonar scan SAR to search for the
After their mission to the Navy, Knorr arrived at the site on 22 August 1985, and distributed Argo . When they searched for two submarines, Ballard and his team found that they had exploded from great pressure to depth. It pollutes thousands of debris all over the ocean floor. Following the great footsteps of the debris takes them straight to both and makes it easier for them to find them than if they were looking for the stomach directly. He already knew that the Titanic had exploded from the pressure, too, just like the two submarines, and concluded that it would also have also left a trail of scattered debris. Using the lesson, they Argo swept back and forth across the ocean floor looking for traces of Titanic debris. They took turn monitoring video feeds from Argo while searching for ocean floors two miles down.
In the early hours of the morning of September 1, 1985, observers noted anomalies on the seamless ocean floor. At first, it was pockmarked, like a small crater of impact. Finally, the debris is visible when the other team members are woken up. Finally, a kettle is visible, and soon after that, the keel is found.
The Ballard team did a general search of the Titanic exterior, paying attention to its condition. Most significantly, they assert that it has split in two, and that the stern is much worse than the bow. They do not have much time to explore, because others are waiting to take Knorr on other scientific pursuits, but his fame is now guaranteed. He originally planned to keep his real secret location to prevent anyone from claiming a gift from it. He considered the site a grave, and refused to tarnish it by removing artifacts.
On July 12, 1986, Ballard and his team returned on board the Atlantis II to make the first detailed study of the accident. This time, he brought Alvin . Accompanied by Jason Junior , a small vehicle operated remotely that can enter through a small hole to look inside the ship. Although the first dive (taking over two hours) had technical problems, the next one was much more successful, and produced a detailed photographic record of the ship's accident condition.
Other shipwrecks
Bismarck
Ballard did a more daunting task when he and his team searched for the German Bismarck Bismarck in 1989. The water in which it sank was 4,000 feet deeper than that where the Titanic was drowned. He tries to determine whether it has been drowned by the British or traced by his own crew. However, three weeks after the expedition, personal tragedies struck him when his 21-year-old son, Todd, who assisted him in searching, was killed in a car accident.
Lusitania
In 1993 Ballard investigated the ruins of RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. It was struck by a torpedo, whose explosion was followed by a second one, which was much larger. The shipwreck had been sealed by the Royal Navy several years after it sank, making it difficult for Ballard to do forensic analysis. He determined that the boiler was intact, and speculated that a second explosion might be caused by coal dust. Others have questioned this hypothesis. He has not ruled out the possibility of cold sea water contacting hot water at the steam generator plant.
Battle of Guadalcanal
In 1992, Ballard and his team had visited the sites of many World War II wrecks in the Pacific, thus, he found the IJN Kirishima shipwreck. His book Lost Ships of Guadalcanal places and photographs many sinking vessels in the famous Ironbottom Sound, the strait between Guadalcanal Island and Floridas in the Solomon Islands.
USS Yorktown
On May 19, 1998, Ballard found Yorktown's wreck, drowning in the Battle of Midway. Found 3 miles (5 km) below the surface, it was photographed.
PT-109
In 2002, National Geographic Society and Ballard deployed a ship by long-distance vehicle to the Solomon Islands. They managed to find the torpedo tube and the front of the John F. Kennedy shipwreck PT-109 which was crushed in 1943 by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri on Ghizo Island. The visit also reveals the identity of the inhabitants of the island Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana who have received little recognition for finding shipwrecked crew after searching for days on their rowboats. A special TV and a book were produced, and Ballard spoke at the John F. Kennedy Library in 2005.
Exploration Institute
In the 1990s, Ballard founded the Institute of Exploration, specializing in deep ocean archaeology and deepwater geology. It joined in 1999 with the Mystic Aquarium located in Mystic, Connecticut. They are part of the nonprofit Marine Research Foundation, Inc.
Archaeological and Oceanic Exploration Center
In 2003, Ballard embarked on the Ocean Exploration and Oceanographic Oseology Center, a research program at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.
Black Sea
In 1976, Willard Bascom claimed that deep and anoxic Black Sea waters may have preserved ships from ancient times because the typical wood-crushing organisms could not survive there. At a depth of 150 m, it contains enough oxygen to support the most recognizable biological life form.
Originally a freshwater lake that was locked on land, the Black Sea was flooded with saltwater from the Mediterranean Sea during the Holocene. The inclusion of saltwater basically retains the fresh water underneath it due to lack of internal movement and mixing means that no fresh oxygen reaches the deep waters, creating a body of merid water. The anoxic environment, which is hostile to many of the biological organisms that destroy wood in oxygenated waters, provides an excellent test site for deep water archaeological surveys.
In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Ballard identified what looked like ancient coastlines, freshwater snail shells, and sinking river valleys in about 100 meters (100 m) of water off the coast of the modern Black Sea of ​​Turkey. The radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusks still shows the age of about 7,000 years.
The team discovered three ancient wrecks west of Sinop at a depth of 100 m. Wreck A and Wreck C probably date from the late Roman period (2nd century to 4th century), while Wreck B probably dates from the Byzantine period (5th century to 7th century).
To the east of Sinop, the team found a very well-maintained shipwreck at a depth of 320 m, in deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea. Whole hulls and intact cargo, buried in sediment. The deck structure is also intact, including a pole that rises about 11 m into the water column. The timber radiocarbon dating from the wreck provides date 410-520 A.D. It has been named "Sinop D" by the Ballard team.
In 2000, the team undertook an expedition that focused on exploring the seabed about 15-30 km west of Sinop, and additional water surveys within the eastern and northern peninsula. Their project has several goals. They attempted to find out whether human residence sites could be identified in an ancient submerged landscape; they examined the seafloor for the wreck (where they found the Synop AD), to test the hypothesis that an anoxic water below 200 m would protect the shipwrecks from being expected. biological attacks on organic components, and to search data on ancient trade routes between Sinop and Crimea shown by terrestrial archaeological relics.
Although Sinop serves as a major trading center on the Black Sea, the wreck is located west of the trade route predicted by the prevalence of Sinopian ceramics on the Crimean peninsula. On an A-C shipwreck, a mound of carrot-shaped jars, called amphorae, is found. They are styles associated with Sinop and retain many of their original arrangement patterns on the seafloor. Jars may have brought various Black Sea products such as olive oil, honey, wine or fish sauce but the contents are currently unknown as no artifacts were found from any of these shipwreck sites in 2000.
The shipwrecks were found giving the team extensive information about technological changes and trade taking place on the Black Sea during the period of political, social and economic transition through their study of shipbuilding techniques. Studies show that in Sinop during the Byzantine era, they have developed long-distance trade as early as 4500 BC. The sea trade on the Black Sea was most intense during the late period of ancient times, between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD. The examination of four shipwrecks found by Ballard and his team provide direct evidence for the Black Sea marine trade as evidenced by the distribution of ceramics on land.
The captured Shipwreck A video images show the delivery jar wall standing about 2 m above the seafloor. The highest amphorae above the mound had fallen without displacing those still standing in the rows beneath them, and the possibility of the ship standing upright on the seabed, slowly buried and filled with sediment because exposed wood is eaten by larvae or hookworm.
Shipwreck B also consists of a large pile of amphorae but some kind of looks, like some wood protruding from inside the mound and above. In addition to the Sinop-style jars, some amphorae are similar to the examples excavated on the wreck of the Byzantine Bizzada ship and dated from the 5th century to the end of the 6th century.
Two separate and mostly buried carrion jars of shipwreck C. The team's visit to the site was brief and was intended primarily to test the survey methodology for internal water procedures.
Shipwreck D gave the team an unprecedented opportunity to document gastric construction during the transitional period. When observing the sonar mark Shipwreck D, the long and slim straighter features on the seafloor, transforming itself into a wooden pole. The elements rarely present on the site of a beautiful shallow shipwreck are preserved 200 m below the surface. Very disappointing for ship scientists and tech historians, there are some indications about how the Sinop D board is put together. There is no mortar and thorn binding, and no sewing. Shipwreck D is probably one of the earliest ships sewn by archaeologists. The corners of the pole and the lack of fittings on it indicate that the lateen screen is the most likely configuration for small vessels.
The expedition of the Black Sea Expedition Institute relies on remote sensing with sonar side scanners in shallow and deep waters to identify potential archaeological sites examined by ROVs. The hypothesis that the anoxic water of the Black Sea will enable the extraordinary organic preservation is borne out by the discovery of Sinop D, a 1,500-year-old shipwreck with excellent feature preservation over sediment layers.
According to a report in New Scientist magazine (May 4, 2002, p.1 13), researchers discovered an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There is evidence for strong fresh water flow out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BC. Ballard's research has contributed to the debate about the theory of the Black Sea flood.
Awards and honors
- In 1988, he was awarded a Doctor of Science degree by the University of Bath.
- In 1990, he received the Golden Plate Academy of Achievement.
- Recipient of the Kilby International Award in 1994
- In 1996, the US Navy Memorial Foundation awarded the Lone Sailor Ballard Award for its naval services and his work on underwater archeology.
- The Caird Medal from the National Maritime Museum in 2002
- National Humanities Medal for 2003
Other works
Academics
In 2004, Ballard was appointed professor of oceanography, and currently serves as Director of the Institute for Oseanography Oseology, at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. He was the first speaker to give Charles and Marie Fish Lecture in Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island in 2002.
Television
Ballard served as a technical consultant on the scienceQuest DSV science fiction series during his first season from September 1993 to May 1994. During the closing credits, he will talk about the scientific elements present in each episode and place it in a contemporary context. Although he came out of the series in the second season, he was referenced in the third season, with "Ballard Institute" named after him.
Education
In 1989, Ballard founded the JASON Project, a distance education program designed to excite and engage high school students in science and technology. He initiated the JASON Project in response to the thousands of letters he received from students after the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic warship.
See also
- Titanic RMS Carcasses
- German battleship Bismarck
- USS Yorktown (CV-5)
- JASON Project
- Mystic Aquarium & amp; Exploration Agency
- Oceanic Exploration and Oceanographic Oseology
References
Further reading
- RD Ballard, F, T. Hiebert, DF Coleman, C. Ward, J. Smith, K. Willis, B. Foley, K. Croff, C. Major, and F. Torre, "Aquatic Archeology Black Sea: Season 2000 in Sinop, Turkey "American Journal of Archeology Vol. 105 No. 4 (October 2001).
External links
- Robert Ballard's faculty page at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.
- Institute of Exploration at Mystic Aquarium.
- NOAA, Ocean Explorer OceanAGE Careers - Video profiles, biographies, and background material related to Oceanexplorer
- Robert Ballard at TED
- TED Talk: The incredible hidden world of the deep ocean (TED2008)
- Geographic National Photo Gallery: Find Titanic
- In Rhode Island University Environmental Center
- Bob Ballard, The Great Explorer, Laura Logan's story on 60 Minutes was broadcast on November 29, 2009
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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