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Article: Excavating 300-year-old French ship. (excavation of explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle's shipwrecked ship off the coast of Texas)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- USA TODAY
- Article date:
- June 1, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Society for the Advancement of Education. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Excavation of famed French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle's ship, the Belle, is under way off the Texas coast. The shipwreck site is the first in the hemisphere to use a cofferdam -- a watertight structure designed to keep liquid out of an enclosed area -- in deep waters. Once it was complete, seawater was pumped out so archaeologists could excavate on dry land. The cofferdam was essential for excavation due to the silty waters of the Gulf of Mexico, where visibility is less than a foot. Any movement including that required by excavation, would make visibility impossible.
The Belle is the oldest French shipwreck ever discovered in the ...
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