Robert Ballard

Robert Duane Ballard

(born 1942, Wichita, Kan., U.S.) U.S. oceanographer and marine geologist. He grew up near San Diego, Calif. As a marine scientist at the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Research Institution, he pioneered the use of deep-diving submersibles, participated in the first manned exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and discovered warm water springs and their unusual animal communities in the Galápagos Rift. He is best known for his dramatic discovery of the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. Since then he has gone on to discover ships lost in battle during World War II.

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Robert D. Ballard

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[b. Wichita, Kansas, June 30, 1942]

In 1973 and 1974 Ballard participated in the first manned exploration of the underwater mountain range known as the mid-Atlantic ridge. In 1977 he led an expedition in the Galapagos Rift that discovered deep-ocean hydrothermal vents surrounded by dense communities of gigantic tube worms and other exotic creatures. Ballard later helped develop the Argo system, in which a deep-sea sled is pulled along the ocean floor by a ship on the surface. Optical fiber technology is used to transmit video pictures from the sled to the towing ship. Ballard's best-known discovery came in 1985, when he located the wreck of R.M.S. Titanic, the ocean liner that sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Ballard also located and studied other shipwrecks, including ancient Roman ships along trade routes off the coast of Tunisia in 1997, the first two intact Phoenician ships ever found, and dozens of other ships.

Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Robert Ballard

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Robert D. Ballard (born 1942) has made some of the most important underwater discoveries in the late twentieth century in regards to science and exploration. Not only did he help advance the concept of plate tectonics and make important discoveries about ocean life, he also managed to find some of the most famous shipwrecks in history, including the German battleship "Bismarck", the "U.S.S. Yorktown" from World War II, and the luxury liner "Titanic".

Thanks to advances in technology, including night-vision cameras and fiber optics, scientists like Ballard can help bring information about the ships back up to the surface. "There's more history preserved in the deep sea than in all the museums of the world combined," Ballard suggested to Paul Karon in the Los Angeles Times. Despite all of his accomplishments in geology, oceanography, and archaeology, Ballard still gets most excited about his capability to scout new territories. "I think of myself as an explorer-that was always my career goal," he told Karon. "If I could go to Mars tomorrow, I'm gone."

Robert Duane Ballard was born June 30, 1942, in Wichita, Kansas, to Chester Patrick (an aerospace executive) and Harriet Nell (May) Ballard. However, Ballard and his three siblings were raised in southern California, where he developed a passion for the sea. The fair-haired teenager would spend much of his time at the beach near his home in San Diego, becoming an avid swimmer, surfer, fisherman, and scuba diver. Ballard's father was a flight engineer at a testing ground in the Mojave Desert, but was later appointed the U.S. Navy's representative to the famous Scripps Institute of Oceanography. When he was still in high school, Ballard wrote a letter to the Scripps Institute that asked, "I love the ocean-what can I do?" he recalled to Bayard Webster in the New York Times. Subsequently, the school invited him to attend a summer program.

Ballard went on to earn a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and geology in 1965 from the University of California at Santa Barbara, but he never lost interest in the sea. After graduating, he pursued post-graduate work at the University of Hawaii Institute of Geophysics in 1965-66, where he made money as the keeper of two trained porpoises at Sea Life Park. He went back to the University of Southern California in 1966-67, and meanwhile, in 1965, he signed up with the U.S. Army in its intelligence unit, where he eventually became second lieutenant. In 1967, he joined the U.S. Navy as a naval oceanographic liaison officer, making lieutenant junior grade. For this stint, he was sent to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, a private, not-for-profit research organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After his naval assignment was completed, he decided to stay on the East Coast and work at Woods Hole, continuing his research in marine geology and ocean engineering.

Studied Plate Tectonics

Joining Woods Hole as a research associate in ocean engineering in 1970, Ballard also pursued his doctorate degree at the University of Rhode Island. He began studying plate tectonics, which was a vanguard theory at the time, and earned his Ph.D. in 1974 with a dissertation on the subject. Plate tectonics suggests that the Earth's land masses are divided into sections, or plates, that move independently of the planet's mantle. This movement causes shifting of the land, which results in earthquakes at the boundaries (fault lines) and can also cause the shape of the land masses to change over time. Also in 1974, Ballard was promoted to assistant scientist in geology and geophysics at Woods Hole. Meanwhile, he was becoming interested in the research submarine Alvin, which was equipped with a remote arm for retrieving samples from the floor of the ocean. He was also intrigued by the idea of studying the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a portion of a global underseas mountain range called the Mid-Ocean Ridge. When he suggested that the three-person Alvin be sent down, other scientists doubted the value of using a submarine for the project. "There were quite a few people … who felt that submarines were expensive toys that geologists played with, and that no real good science would come out of them," Ballard remarked to James Lardner in the Washington Post.

Nevertheless, by 1974, Ballard was named head of Project FAMOUS (French-American Mid-Ocean Underseas Study) and proved the naysayers wrong. The expedition began in the summer of 1974 with a fleet of four ships and three research submarines. During the project, Ballard designed a survey sled called Angus that carried a camera and could be controlled acoustically. It was sent down before Alvin's dives in order to take pictures so that the scientists could determine where they wanted to go. Ballard was on board the Alvin during most of its 17 dives to the ocean floor and thus was able to witness the rift formed at the juncture of the plates that form the eastern and western sides of the Atlantic seabed. In addition to the geological importance of the mission, Ballard and his team came back with data that could help predict earthquakes, and they also found beds of natural resources such as petroleum and minerals.

In 1975 and 1976, Ballard and many of the Project FAMOUS team went to the Cayman Trough, a depression in the ocean floor just south of Cuba. They found that they had correctly predicted recent volcanic activity under the sea and picked up rock samples from the mantle of the Earth's crust. In 1976, Ballard was named an associate scientist at Woods Hole, and would later be promoted to associate scientist in ocean engineering in 1978 and senior scientist in 1983. In 1979, he embarked on what would yield one of his most exciting discoveries. Off the coast of Ecuador on the Galapagos Rift, where plates were moving more quickly and strange variances in water temperature were recorded, he discovered that hydrothermal vents were erupting from cracks in the Earth's crust and that marine life-crabs, clams, and tube worms-could survive there by chemosynthesis. The journey and the underwater footage was used in a 1980 National Geographic special called Dive to the Edge of Creation.

The amazing creatures and their means of survival led biologists to hypothesize that life may have begun by this chemical method, but in shallow water. On another trip near Baja California, Ballard took along some biologists and found even more proof. Tall geysers that he dubbed "black smokers" were found to sustain surrounding marine life, never before seen, that fed on the chemical-rich dark smoke gushing out of the 10-to 20-foot spews that threatened to melt the submarine's port holes. Marine biologists, up to that point, had assumed that no creature could survive so deep in the sea, where sunlight never penetrates. Though he is not a biologist and cannot authoritatively comment on whether life may have started by chemical methods, Ballard does believe that the smoky chimneys may be responsible for much of the world's mineral deposits.

Unmanned Sea Exploration

In the early 1980s, Ballard went to work on developing technology for unmanned sea exploration. Sending teams of scientists is expensive and often fruitless, so Ballard decided that robotic means could lower costs and increase productivity for such projects. With funding from the U.S. Navy and the National Science Foundation, Ballard formed the Deep Submergence Laboratory at Woods Hole in 1981. He thus designed the Argo-Jason system, an automated submarine loaded with robotic equipment that could function as the scientists' eyes and ears underwater. Argo, about the size of a car, has three video cameras that can see in almost total darkness, and its smaller assistant, Jason, has a robotic lens and arms and can be sent out to retrieve items from the ocean. With it, Ballard told Webster in the New York Times, "We hope to get even clearer pictures of the sea floor and what goes on down there."

Discovered Titanic in the North Atlantic

Some of Ballard's colleagues were dubious that his system would allow for unmanned exploration, but he did not waver. For its maiden run, Ballard sent Argo-Jason down to search for the British luxury liner Titanic, which had hit an iceberg and sunk during its maiden voyage on the night of April 14-15, 1912, killing more than 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers. Ballard had long been intrigued by the legendary ship and its story, and eventually convinced the U.S. Navy to furnish a research ship, Knorr, and maps of the area where the ship was thought to have gone down. He assembled a group of French sonar researchers who set out for the North Atlantic in the summer of 1985. In late August, Ballard and his crew arrived on the Knorr, sending down the cameras and waiting for a sign. "The bottom was just going by and going by," Ballard told Karon in the Los Angeles Times. "And it's a boring bottom."

Less than a week later, on September 1, 1985, the Argo sent up an image of one of the Titanic's boilers as Ballard watched on a television monitor. He immediately knew it was the right ship, because he had studied it in detail. "It was a fluke," Ballard noted in U.S. News and World Report. "Any fishing boat could have done it." In a week and one day, the Argo videotape camera and the still camera on the Angus captured over 20,000 images of the shipwreck, including the damaged area and hundreds of artifacts such as bottles, china, a silver tray, and the barren lifeboat cranes. Ballard was strongly moved by the scenes and opposed anyone who wanted to profit from it, stating that instead, it should be declared an international memorial. The next summer, Ballard went down in the Alvin along with Jason Jr., a remote "eyeball" that went inside the ship, and saw even more personal items, including a man's shoe and a porcelain doll's head. In 1997, a blockbuster film would be released based on the events of that tragic night, but fictionalized to provide an old-fashioned love story as well. Ballard remarked in Newsday, "The movie is excellent. It's a great Romeo and Juliet love story. I saw the ship I never saw, in all of its beauty and elegance."

After this notable discovery, Ballard also found the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic Ocean and in 1997 announced that he had found eight sailing ships, some dating back before the days of Jesus Christ, 2,500 feet below the surface off the coast of Tunisia in the Mediterranean. By then, Ballard was president of the Institute for Exploration based out of Mystic, Connecticut, and a senior scientist emeritus at Woods Hole. The finding of the Roman ships was especially important because it established that underwater archaeology could be performed in the deep seas of up to 20,000 feet. Previously, archaeologists limited their research to shipwrecks in coastal waters of less than 200 feet because they thought ancient mariners did not venture into deeper waters. In May 1998, Ballard made another major discovery when he photographed the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown, sunk in the Pacific Ocean by Japanese forces on June 7, 1942, during World War II's Battle of Midway. It was located in almost 17,000 feet of water, one mile deeper than the Titanic, about 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. The National Geographic Society helped sponsor the work.

Ballard has raised eyebrows among some fellow scientists due to what they consider his enthusiasm to seek publicity. He has appeared in television programs, given lectures, and written for National Geographic Magazine, in addition to writing in professional journals. He also established the Jason Foundation for Education and the Jason Project, which aims to increase students' interest in science. Like cosmologist Carl Sagan and underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, Ballard has done much to bring science into the homes of laypeople, an accomplishment that he considers his public duty. "[Sagan and Cousteau] have probably sometimes lost some of the regard of their fellow scientists," Ballard admitted to Webster in the New York Times. "But look at the good they've done by making science exciting and making people aware of it! And don't forget that my science is paid for by some poor coal miner whose taxes go to support me while I'm having fun, so I feel it's responsible to go to him and the public and tell them what I'm doing."

In 1966, Ballard married Marjorie Constance Jacobsen, a medical receptionist. They have two sons, Todd Alan and Douglas Matthew, and live in Hatchville, Massachusetts. Ballard has won a number of awards, including the Science award from the Underwater Society of America in 1976 for exploration and research conducted in the Cayman Trough; the Compass Distinguished Achievement Award from the Marine Technology Society in 1977 for leadership in the area of deep submergence exploration; and the Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1981 for the best scientific paper in a journal of science. He also received the Cutty Sark Science Award from Science Digest, 1982, for exploration conducted in Mid-Ocean Ridge, including the discovery of underwater hot springs and their unique animal communities. In 1985, he won a grant for $800,000 along with the Secretary of the Navy Research Chair in Oceanography, and in 1986, he was given the Washburn Award from the Boston Museum of Science. He was awarded the prestigious Hubbard Medal from the National Geographic Society in 1996. Ballard has written or cowritten 15 books and has published numerous articles in journals and magazines, including National Geographic.

Robert Duane Ballard

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Ballard, Robert Duane (băl'ərd), 1942-, American marine geologist, b. Wichita, Kans.; Ph.D. Univ. of Rhode Island, 1974. In 1969, he began an association with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, where he eventually became the head of the Deep Submergence Laboratory. He combined interests in plate tectonics and engineering to participate in the development of the manned deep-sea submersible Alvin and to develop remotely navigated underwater survey equipment that made possible detailed mapping of the midocean ridge. Some of this equipment was used in his searches for the wrecks of the Titanic, the Lusitania, the German battleship Bismarck, and John F. Kennedy's PT 109. During exploration of the Galapagos rift, he was among the first to observe the ecosystems surrounding hydrothermal vents. Well known for his emphasis on educating the public, he has written Exploring Our Living Planet (1983) and other books and founded the Jason Project, which allows young people to participate in expeditions via live hook-ups with their schools. Ballard is also associated with the Mystic (Conn.) Marine Aquarium, where he heads the Institute for Exploration.

Bibliography

See his The Eternal Darkness: A Personal History of Deep-Sea Exploration (2000; with W. Hively).

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Robert Ballard

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This article is about the United States oceanographer. For the French lutenist, see Robert Ballard (lutenist). For the Australian track and field athlete, see Robert Ballard (athlete).

Robert Ballard
Robert Ballard
Born	Robert Duane Ballard June 30, 1942 (1942-06-30) (age 69) Wichita, Kansas
Nationality	United States
Education	UC Santa Barbara University of Hawaii University of Southern California University of Rhode Island
Employer	University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography
Known for	Ocean exploration and underwater archaeology; discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic, the battleship Bismarck, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, and John F. Kennedy's PT-109
Awards	Kilby International Awards (1994) Caird Medal (2002)

Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the wreck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. Most recently he discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.

Early life

Ballard grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California to a mother of German heritage and a father of British heritage.^[1] He has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to reading the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,^[2] living by the ocean in San Diego, and his fascination with the groundbreaking expeditions of the bathyscaphe Trieste.

Ballard began working for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation in 1962 when his father, Chet Ballard, the chief engineer at North American Aviation's Minuteman missile program, helped him get a part-time job. When Ballard first joined North American, he worked with Rechnitzer on North American's failed proposal to build the submersible Alvin for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

In 1965, Ballard graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning undergraduate degrees in chemistry and geology. While a student in Santa Barbara, California, he joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and also completed the US Army's ROTC program, giving him an Army officer's commission in Army Intelligence. His first graduate degree (MS, 1966) was in geophysics from the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics where he trained porpoises and whales to make a living. After getting married, Ballard returned to Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation.

Ballard was working towards a Ph.D. in marine geology at the University of Southern California in 1967 when he was called to active duty. Upon his request, Ballard was transferred from the Army into the US Navy as an oceanographer. The Navy assigned Ballard as a liaison between the Office of Naval Research and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

After leaving active duty and entering into the Navy Reserve in 1970, Ballard continued working at Woods Hole persuading organizations and people, mostly scientists, to fund and use Alvin for undersea research. Four years later Ballard received a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics at the University of Rhode Island.

Ballard's first dive in a submersible was in the Ben Franklin (PX-15) in 1969 off the coast of Florida during a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition. In the summer of 1970, Ballard began a field mapping project of the Gulf of Maine for his doctoral dissertation. The project used an air gun that sent sound waves underwater to determine the underlying structure of the ocean floor and the submersible Alvin which was used to find and recover a sample from the bedrock.

During the summer of 1975, Ballard participated in a joint French-American expedition called Phere searching for hydrothermal vents over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but the expedition did not find any active vents. A 1979 expedition was aided by deep-towed still camera sleds that were able to take pictures of the ocean floor, making it easier to find the vent locations.

When Alvin inspected one of the sites they located, the scientists observed black smoke billowing out of the vents, something not observed at the Galápagos Rift. Ballard and geophysicist Jean Francheteau went down in Alvin the day after the black smokers were first observed. They were able to take an accurate temperature reading of the active vent (the previous dive's thermometer had melted), and recorded 350 °C (662 °F). Ballard and Francheteau continued searching for more vents along the East Pacific Rise between 1980 and 1982.

Military career

Ballard joined the United States Army in 1965 through the Army's Reserve Officers Training program. Ballard was designated as an intelligence officer and initially received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve. He was called up to active duty in 1967 but requested to fulfill his obligation in the United States Navy. His request was approved and Ballard was transferred to the Navy Reserve on the reserve active duty list. After completing his active duty obligation in 1970, Ballard was transferred back to reserve status where he would remain for a good portion of his military career being called up only for mandatory training and special assignments. He retired from the Navy as a commander in 1995 after reaching the statutory service limit.

Marine archaeology

Giving a presentation on the importance of exploring the oceans at TED 2008

While Ballard had been interested in the sea since an early age, his work at Woods Hole and his scuba diving experiences off Massachusetts spurred his interest in shipwrecks and their exploration. His work in the Navy had involved assisting the development of small, unmanned submersibles which could be tethered to and controlled from a surface ship, and were outfitted with lighting, cameras, and manipulator arms. As early as 1973, Ballard saw this as way of searching for the wreck of Titanic. In 1977, he led his first expedition, which was unsuccessful.

RMS Titanic

In the summer of 1985, Ballard was aboard the French research ship Le Suroît, which was using the side scan sonar SAR to search for Titanic's wreck. When the French ship was recalled, Ballard transferred onto a ship from Woods Hole, the R/V Knorr. Unbeknownst to some, this trip was being financed by the U.S. Navy specifically for secret reconnaissance of the wreckage of two Navy nuclear powered attack submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher, that sank in the 1960s and not for Titanic. Back in 1982, Ballard approached the Navy about his new deep sea underwater robot craft, the Argo, and his search for Titanic.^[3] The Navy was not interested in spending that kind of money in searching for the large ocean liner. However, they were interested in finding out what happened to their missing submarines and ultimately concluded that Argo was their best chance to do so.^[3] The Navy agreed it would finance Ballard's Titanic search only if he first searched for and investigated the two sunken submarines,^[3] find out the state of their nuclear reactors after being submerged for such a long period of time,^[3] and if their radioactivity was impacting the environment.^[3] Ballard would be placed on temporary active duty in the Navy, in charge of finding and investigating the wrecks. After the two missions were completed, time and funding permitting, Ballard would be free to use the resources to hunt for Titanic.^[3]

After their missions for the Navy, Knorr arrived on site on August 22, 1985,^[4] and deployed Argo. When they searched for the two submarines, Ballard and his team discovered that they had imploded from the immense pressure depth.^[5] That implosion littered thousands of pieces of debris all over the ocean floor.^[5] Following each of the submarines' large trail of debris led Ballard and his team directly to both of them^[5] and made it significantly easier for them to locate the submarines than if they were to search for the hulls directly.^[5] Ballard already knew that Titanic imploded from pressure depth as well, much the same way the two submarines did, and concluded that it too must have also left a scattered debris trail.^[5] Using that lesson, Ballard and his team had Argo sweep back and forth across the ocean floor looking for Titanic's debris trail.^[4] Ballard's team took shifts monitoring the video feed from Argo as it searched the monotonous ocean floor two miles below.

In the early morning hours of September 1, 1985, observers noted anomalies on the otherwise smooth ocean floor. At first, it was pockmarks, like small craters from impacts. Eventually debris was sighted as the rest of the team was awakened. Finally, a boiler was sighted, and soon after that, the hull itself was found.

Ballard's team made a general search of the vessel's exterior, noting its condition. Most significantly they confirmed that Titanic had in fact split in two, and that the stern was in far worse shape than the rest of the ship. Ballard's team did not have much time to explore, as others were waiting to take Knorr on other scientific pursuits, but his fame was now assured. Ballard originally planned to keep the exact location a secret to prevent anyone from claiming prizes from the wreck. Ballard considered the site a cemetery, and refused to desecrate it by removing artifacts from the wreck.

On July 12, 1986, Ballard and his team returned on board Atlantis II ^[4] to make the first detailed study of the wreck. This time, Ballard brought Alvin, a deep diving submersible which could hold a small crew Alvin was accompanied by Jason Junior, a small remotely operated vehicle which could fit through small openings to see into the ship's interior. While the first dive (taking over two hours to dive down) saw technical problems, subsequent dives were far more successful, and produced a detailed photographic record of the wreck's condition.

Other wrecks

Bismarck

Ballard undertook an even more daunting task when he and his team went searching for the German Battleship Bismarck in 1989. The water in which she sank is 4,000 feet deeper than where Titanic sank. Ballard attempted to make clear whether the German battleship had been sunk by the British or was scuttled by her own crew. Three weeks after the expedition however, personal tragedy struck the famed explorer when his 21 year old son Todd, who had aided his father in the search, was killed in a car accident.

Lusitania

In 1993 Ballard investigated the wreck of RMS Lusitania off the Irish coast. The ship was struck by one torpedo, whose explosion was followed by a second, much larger one. The wreck had been depth charged by the Royal Navy several years after the sinking, so it was difficult for Ballard to a do a forensic analysis. He determined the boilers were intact, and speculated the second explosion may have been caused by coal dust. Others have questioned this hypothesis. Ballard has not ruled out the possibility of cold seawater contacting superheated water in the ship's steam generation plant.

Battle of Guadalcanal

Ballard and his team have also visited the sites of many wrecks of World War II in the Pacific. His book Lost Ships of Guadalcanal locates and photographs many of the vessels sunk in the infamous Ironbottom Sound, the strait between Guadalcanal Island and the Floridas in the Solomon Islands.

USS Yorktown

On 19 May 1998 Ballard found the wreck of Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway. The wreck was found 3 miles (5 km) beneath the surface and was photographed.

JFK's PT-109

In 2002, the National Geographic Society and Ballard fielded a ship with remote vehicles to the Solomon Islands. They succeeded in finding a torpedo tube from the tiny shipwreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 which was rammed in 1943 by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri off Ghizo Island. The visit also brought to light the identity of islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana who had received little recognition for finding the shipwrecked crew after searching for days in their dugout canoe. A TV special and a book were produced, and Ballard spoke at the John F. Kennedy Library in 2005.

Institute for Exploration

In the 1990s Ballard founded the Institute for Exploration, which specializes in deep-sea archaeology and deep-sea geology. It joined forces in 1999 with the Mystic Aquarium located in Mystic, Connecticut. They are a part of the non-profit Sea Research Foundation, Inc.

Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography

In 2003, Ballard started the Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography, a research program at University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.^[6]

Black Sea

In 1976, Willard Bascom suggested that the deep, anoxic waters of the Black Sea might have preserved ships from antiquity because typical wood-devouring organisms could not survive there. At a depth of 150 m, the Black Sea contains insufficient oxygen to support most familiar biological life forms.

Originally a land-locked fresh water lake, the Black Sea was flooded with salt water from the Mediterranean Sea during the Holocene. The influx of salt water essentially smothered the fresh water below it because a lack of internal motion and mixing meant that no fresh oxygen reached the deep waters,^[7] creating a meromictic body of water. The anoxic environment, which is hostile to many biological organisms that destroy wood in the oxygenated waters, provides an excellent testing site for deep water archaeological survey.

In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, and drowned river valleys in roughly 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusk remains indicated an age of about 7,000 years.

The team discovered three ancient wrecks to the west of the town of Sinop at depths of 100 m. Wreck A and Wreck C probably date to the late Roman period (2nd–4th century A.D.), while Wreck B probably dates to the Byzantine period (5th to 7th century A.D.).

To the east of Sinop, the team discovered a remarkably well-preserved wreck at a 320 m depth, in Black Sea's deep anoxic waters. The vessel's entire hull and cargo are intact, buried in sediments. Its deck structures are also intact, including a mast rising some 11 m into the water column. Radiocarbon dating of wood from the wreck provides a date of 410–520 A.D. This ship has been named "Sinop D" by the Ballard team.

In 2000, Ballard and his team conducted an expedition that focused on the exploration of the sea bed about 15–30 km west of Sinop, and an additional deep-water survey east and north of the peninsula. Their project had several goals. They sought to discover whether human habitation sites could be identified on the ancient submerged landscape, they examined the sea-bed for shipwrecks (where they found Sinop A-D), to test the hypothesis that the anoxic waters below 200 m would protect shipwrecks from the expected biological attacks on organic components, and to seek data about an ancient trade route between Sinop and the Crimea indicated by terrestrial archaeological remains.

Although Sinop served as a primary trade center in the Black Sea, the wrecks were located west of the trade route predicted by the prevalence of Sinopian ceramics on the Crimean peninsula. On wrecks A-C, mounds of distinctive carrot-shaped shipping jars, called amphorae, were found. They were of a style associated with Sinop and retained much of their original stacking pattern on the sea floor. The jars may have carried a variety of archetypal Black Sea products such as olive oil, honey, wine or fish sauce but the contents are presently unknown because no artifacts were recovered from any of these wreck sites in 2000.

The wreck found provided the team with vast information about both the technological changes and trade that occurred in the Black Sea during a period of political, social and economic transition through their study of the ship’s construction techniques. Studies show that in Sinop during the Byzantine era, they had developed long-distance trading as early as 4500 BC. Sea-trading on the Black Sea was most intense during the period of late antiquity, between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD.^[8] The examination of the four shipwrecks found by Ballard and his team provide the direct evidence for Black Sea maritime trade so well attested by the distribution of ceramics on land.

The video images of Shipwreck A that were taken show a wall of shipping jars standing about 2 m above the sea-bed. The amphorae highest on the mound had fallen over without displacing those still standing in the rows beneath them, and it is likely that the ship settled upright on the sea-bed, gradually being both buried in and filled with sediment as exposed wood was devoured by the larva or the shipworm.

Shipwreck B also consisted of a large pile of amphorae but several types are visible, as are multiple timbers protruding from within the mound and on it. In addition to the Sinop-styles jars, several amphorae similar to examples excavated on the Yassiada Byzantine shipwreck and dating from the 5th to late 6th century AD are present.^[9]

Two discrete and mostly buried piles of carrot-shaped shipping jars compromise shipwreck C. The team’s visit to the site was short and was intended primarily to test survey methodology for deep-water procedures.

Shipwreck D provided Ballard and his team with an unprecedented opportunity to document hull construction during a time of transition. When observing the sonar signature of Shipwreck D, a long, slender upright feature on the sea-bed, transformed itself into a wooden mast. Elements rarely present on shallower shipwreck sites are beautifully preserved 200 m below the surface. Disappointingly for ship scholars and historians of technology, there are few indications of how the planks of Sinop D are held together. There are no mortise and tenon fastenings, and no sewing. Shipwreck D may be one of the earliest lateen-rigged ships to be studied by archaeologists. The angle of the mast and the lack of fittings on it suggest that a lateen sail is the most likely configuration for such a small vessel.

The Institute for Exploration Black Sea expeditions relied on remote sensing with side-scan sonar in shallow and deep water to identify potential archaeological sites examined by ROVs. The hypothesis that the anoxic waters of the Black Sea would allow extraordinary organic preservation is borne out by the discovery of Sinop D, the 1,500 year old shipwreck with excellent preservation of features above the sediment layer.^[10]

According to a report in New Scientist magazine (May 4, 2002, p. 13), the researchers found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There was evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BC. Ballard's research has contributed to the debate over the Black Sea deluge theory.

Awards and honors

In 1990, Ballard received the Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.
Kilby International Awards recipient in 1994^[11]
The Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum in 2002.

Other works

Academics

In 2004, Ballard was appointed professor of oceanography, and currently serves as Director of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography, at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.

Television

Ballard served as the technical consultant on the science fiction series seaQuest DSV during its first season from September 1993 until May 1994. During the end credits, he would speak about the scientific elements that were present in any given episode and place them in a contemporary context. Although he exited the series in the second season, he was referenced in the third season, with the "Ballard Institute" being named after him.

Education

In 1989, Ballard founded the JASON Project, a distance education program designed to excite and engage middle school students in science and technology. Ballard began the JASON Project in response to the thousands of letters he received from students following his discovery of the wreck of the Titanic.^[12]

Quotations

"If you want to know the truth, it's too late. All the ice is going to melt. There is a lag, it's already in the system. And, in fact, people don't want to say that, because they still want people to change their ways. But when it comes to glaciers and polar regions, it's going to melt".^[13]
"I'm not so worried about warming, because that is going to happen, and it is happening. I'm worried about disease, I'm more worried about pandemics. I worry more about that than sea level rising.^[13]
"We came around the corner and it was in my view port. There was this wall of steel. Like the slab in 2001, like the walls of Troy at night. It was just big, the end of the universe. It just was there as a statement. We came in and I just looked out of my window -- I had to look up -- because the Titanic shot up a hundred and some feet above me. I'm down at the very keel, and I just went 'My God.' "^[14]

References

^ "Crew of Bismarck may have sunk her". Associated Press. June 23, 1989. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE4D7143AF930A15755C0A96F948260. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
^ "An Interview with Dr. Robert Ballard". Homeschool.com. http://www.homeschool.com/articles/ballard/. Retrieved 2005-10-17.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Smith, Lewis (2008-05-24). "Titanic search was cover for secret Cold War subs mission". London: The Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3994955.ece. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
^ ^a ^b ^c Discovery Of Titanic
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Ballard's Titanic search was cover-up of secret U.S. mission
^ "Institute for Archaeological Oceanography". University of Rhode Island. 2004-06-01. http://www.uri.edu/news/ballard/institute.htm. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
^ Oğuz, T., Latun, V.S., Latif, M.A., Vladimirov, V. L., Sur, H. I., Markov, A. A., Ozsoy, E. Kotovschichkov, B. B., Eremeev, V.N., and Unluata, U., 1993, Circulation in the surface and intermediate layers of the Black Sea, Deep Sea Research 1.40: 1597-612.
^ Hiebert, F., 2001, Black Sea coastal cultures: trade and interaction, Expedition 43: 11–20
^ van Doorninck, F. H. Jr., 2002, Byzantine shipwrecks, in A. Laiou (ed.), The Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century I, 899–905. Dumbarton Oaks Studies 30, Washington, DC.
^ Ballard, Robert D., and Ward, Cheryl, 2004, Deep-water Archaeological Survey in the Black Sea; 2000 Season, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 33.1: 2–13.
^ http://www.kilby.org/kl_past_laureates.html
^ "The JASON Project - History". jason.org. http://www.jason.org/Public/AboutUS/History.aspx?pos=6. Retrieved August 14, 2008.
^ ^a ^b Robert Ballard on Global Warming: It's too late
^ Biography and Video Interview of Robert Ballard at Academy of Achievement.

External links

Robert Ballard's faculty page at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.
Institute for Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium.
Ocean Explorer - Public outreach site for explorations sponsored by the Office of Ocean Exploration.
NOAA, Ocean Explorer OceanAGE Careers - Video profiles, biographies, and background materials related to Oceanexplorer
TED Talk: Robert Ballard on exploring the oceans at TED in 2008
National Geographic Photo Gallery: Discovering the Titanic
University of Rhode Island Inner Space Center
Titanic discovery was byproduct of military quest at the St. Petersburg Times
Bob Ballard, The Great Explorer, Laura Logan's story on 60 Minutes broadcast on November 29, 2009

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Media	Film · Comic book · Song · Model · Video game · The Search for Kennedy's PT 109

Persondata
Name	Ballard, Robert
Alternative names
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Date of birth	June 30, 1942
Place of birth	Wichita, Kansas
Date of death
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Robert Ballard

Robert Duane Ballard

Robert D. Ballard

Robert Ballard

Robert Duane Ballard

Robert Ballard

Early life

Military career

Marine archaeology

RMS Titanic

Other wrecks

Bismarck

Lusitania

Battle of Guadalcanal

USS Yorktown

JFK's PT-109

Institute for Exploration

Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography

Black Sea

Awards and honors

Other works

Academics

Television

Education

Quotations

References

Further reading

External links