Creating Models of Unidentified Wrecks
This project is all about identifying wrecks – and secrets are already starting to emerge from the seabed!
This is partly due to the arrival of Dr Innes McCartney. As you know, we’re using sonar to create digital models of wrecks, and then digging through the archives to try and identify each wreck. Innes just so happens to have a wealth of experience in doing this kind of work.
We recently received a dataset covering shipwreck sites off the west coast of the Isle of Man and Innes is already working through it. We now have some spectacular models of wrecks, and most of these need identifying.
This model might look fairly low-resolution and unclear to the untrained eye, but a lot of work goes into getting to this stage. The model is also incredibly useful. So, we thought we’d give you the lowdown on what we are getting up to!
A step-by-step guide
Step 1
Bangor University’s research ship ‘Prince Madog’ collects data from areas of seabed that contain wrecks using multibeam sonar. Before sending all this data over to us, they make sure that it is all corrected to take account of the precise position and movement of the vessel.
Step 2
Innes then carefully ‘cleans’ the data. You can’t clean data with soap – ‘cleaning data’ means getting rid of any unnecessary data points or any data that are clearly incorrect.
Step 3
We turn the data into digital models of the terrain of the seabed and the shipwreck.
The data records the different depths of the seabed in incredible detail. To build a useful model, you need to show these different depths using colour.
Good colour choices and ranges allow us to pick up all the important details. Highlighting important points will make the model much easier to analyse and identify.
Using models for research
Over the coming months, Dr McCartney will work on over 50 datasets like this. As well as following these steps, he’ll use the Unpath’d Waters project resources and marine archives to identify shipwrecks.
Identifying wrecks means that researchers can learn more about maritime history, make connections across collections, and link the vessels to public and research communities.
Also of interest
