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Shipwreck lecture Sept. 22 at GLMHC

News Photo by Darby Hinkley Caleb O’Brien, maritime archaeologist with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, will give a lecture on shipwrecks on Sept. 22 at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

ALPENA — Take a deep dive into shipwreck history on Thursday, Sept. 22 with Caleb O’Brien, maritime archaeologist with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

“Caleb’s going to lead the charge and get us back into our regular lecture series,” said Stephanie Gandulla, maritime archaeologist with Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. “So, people can look forward to more. We’ll have a Fisheries Heritage one coming up, and, of course, more history and science happening in the sanctuary.”

O’Brien’s lecture will be at 7 p.m. at Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, 500 W. Fletcher St., Alpena.

His lecture will focus on research he conducted for his master thesis.

“For the past two years, I’ve done a study called The Archaeological Site Formation of Norman and Grecian,” O’Brien said. “I’ve done historic research on these two ships, Norman and Grecian, which are both within the sanctuary. They’re sister ships, so they should be identical to each other. And I’ve found builders’ plans that correspond to what they would have looked like when they were built.”

Using the historical record, he was able to break the ships apart into what they look like today, at the bottom of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

“Using that, you can determine how they’re breaking apart,” he said. “These are two 1890s freighters that were sailing between Escanaba and Cleveland, carrying iron ore from the Chapin Iron Mine over in Iron Mountain, and they both sank in the sanctuary, about 10 years apart.”

He said using that information allows you to make better management plans for preservation of these types of ships, because you can see what has been affecting and breaking these ships down.

Although shipwrecks in the colder fresh water of Thunder Bay hold up better than those in warm salty ocean waters, there are still some factors that contribute to their deterioration, such as mussels and tethers.

“What can we do now to prevent more degradation into the future?” O’Brien asked. “What I’ve done is gone through and analyzed what specific things are affecting the wrecks.”

Some factors include invasive mussels, ice, current, wind, and tackle being put onto the beams before the mooring buoys were placed at the shipwrecks. Mooring buoys mark the shipwrecks without touching them, so boaters and divers can locate them easily.

“Other people had been tying stuff to the wrecks, which, obviously, is slowly going to break them down more and more,” he noted.

O’Brien’s lecture will include a digital presentation with many visual aids.

O’Brien is completing his master’s degree through East Carolina University’s Maritime History and Maritime Archaeology program. He is originally from Indiana.

“It’s really, now, a passion of mine to continue working in the Great Lakes,” O’Brien said.

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