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Data is archived at US Navy, San Bruno and
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Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
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Metadata in USGS database 9/7/94
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(following is modified from 7/29/94 USGS Bulletin & Aug 1994 GD News)
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During World War II, the Farallones were shot at for gunnery practice and a
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lot of military garbage ended up being dumped around them. Later, about 70,000
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barrels of low-level radioactive waste was dumped there too.
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Thursday, 7/28/94, Herman Karl joined the Laney Chouest (support vessel for
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the DSV Sea Cliff) at Alameda Naval Air Station. He will be using the DSV
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Sea Cliff to look for the barrels of radioactive waste west of the Farallon
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Islands. This is being done to ground-truth our interpretations of barrels
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on the sidescan sonar images. We have provided sidescan images and locations
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of possible barrels to guide the dive and ROV searches. The cruise is
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sponsored by and in cooperation with the U.S. Navy. Representatives from the
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Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and NOAA's Hazardous
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Materials Response Branch are also participating as part of our cooperative
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research project in the marine sanctuary. The second priority of the cruise
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is to dive in Pioneer Canyon, and the third priority is to dive on what might
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be the USS Independence -- an aircraft carrier blasted and irradiated during
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the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests and then scuttled over the continental
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slope west of the Farallon Islands. So far, our interpretations of the SeaMarc
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IA side scan have been right on, and we've directed the submersible to targets
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(condition of barrels range from virtually intact to completely disintegrated),
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and a dive in Pioneer Canyon has allowed biologists to see lifestyles of
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organizms previously known only from dead specimens. Rough weather has
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prevented us from verifying a large target thought to be the USS Independence,
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but we'll keep trying.
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DSV Sea Cliff and Advanced Tethered Vehicle (ATV) were used.
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