A legendary ghost of the Civil War is emerging from the depths of the Graveyard of the Atlantic in high-definition, after a recent research effort off the coast of Cape Hatteras.
Along the coast on North Carolina, 240 feet beneath the Atlantic, the U.S.S. Monitor has spent more than a century in total darkness. However, a landmark mission by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries is now bringing the "Cheesebox on a Raft" back to light.
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“It looked like a round cheese box on top of a raft," explained Tane Casserly, Research Coordinator for NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in Virginia, "That's what they called it that.”
The ship, which featured the first rotating turret in U.S. naval history, sank during a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of the year in 1862. “It eventually got overwhelmed with water coming into the vessel at different parts, cooling the engines and the steam furnaces, and eventually the ship was overwhelmed and unfortunately went down with 16 crew members," Cassserly said. The remains of two of those crew members were recovered in a previous expedition to the site in 2002, and the sailors were honored and buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
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In partnership with NOAA, aerospace and defense technology company Northrup Grumman has used autonomous underwater drones equipped with sonar to capture the most detailed 3D digital models of the wreck to date. Casserly said the images, unveiled this month at The Mariners’ Museum, provide a millimeter-precise look at the ship’s iron hull and its current role as a thriving artificial reef.
“It's really difficult to visit Monitor due to the currents and the depth, just the challenges of working offshore Cape Hatteras area," he said. "So, it really has grown up with this oasis of life down there. And it's really wonderful to see that it has a whole, essentially a second life to the Monitor's history now, be able to support all these wonderful sea creatures.”
Watch Northrup Grumman's YouTube video of simulation of the sinking of the U.S.S. Monitor.
Dr. Chris Taylor is a Research Ecologist for NOAAs National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, based at the Beaufort Laboratory. He’s also worked with the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary for 15 years.
He said, “It's in 240 feet of water. It's surrounded by miles of sand that has no other measurable features or emergent rock or reefs. And so, the fact that this thing exists there, it really is like an oasis where we encounter tropical species that we may see in areas of Florida, coral reefs in the Caribbean, to large schooling fish like amberjacks, spadefish, even some snappers and groupers that are sought after by recreational fishers. And then the largest occupants of the wreck being the sand tiger sharks that are that seen to be present on there as they're as they're using these oases to sort of migrate up and down the Atlantic coast.”
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Researchers from the sustainable engineering and environmental consulting firm Stantec also collected environmental DNA, or eDNA, from seawater around the wreck to identify species living there without directly capturing or observing them. Kelly Swindle is a Senior Marine Biologist with Stantec, and said, "“Since the AUV was already going out, we knew there wasn't a chance that the AUV was going to bump into the monitor or really bother the species that are living around the reef. We decided to use a 3D printed metaprobe and attach it to the AUV so that we get that passive sampling without the risk of bumping into the ship.”
Stantec Environmental Scientist Nathaniel Marshall described that metaprobe as being similar to a childhood plaything most are familiar with. “It's basically a wiffle ball, right?" he explained, "You can picture a wiffle ball that had two or three sponges in it. And these were attached to the AUV. So, these went down close to 300 feet, were down there for 20 to 30 minutes, came back up, we took those sponges, sent them off to a lab that looked for DNA.”
The testing detected several fish species, including the lancer dragonet, pearly razorfish, largehead hairtail, and flounder – mainly bottom-dwellers -- along with traces of invertebrates and algae. The findings help scientists understand how the wreck functions as an artificial reef and habitat for marine life.
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The U.S.S Monitor wreck site was designated as the first U.S. National Marine Sanctuary in 1975.
