New Day In Underwater Treasure Hunting

Until recently, an underwater treasure hunt has been a relatively low-tech pursuit involving SCUBA divers with big flashlights and metal detecting units poking around in shipwrecks hunting for what might have been never found. Even as GPS technology has gotten more advanced, no one has discovered a way to immediately provide for ordinary satellite signals to penetrate water, and therefore even a little layer of water between a GPS receiver and the sky renders such a device useless.

Of late, even so, specialists in GPS and satellite technology have been developing new ways for a GPS receiver to be used during an underwater treasure hunt. For example, companies have started producing GPS receivers that can convert satellite signals into SONAR. By buoying such a device on the surface or floating it next to the dive ship, the receiver can broadcast position data thru SONAR to a diver with a compatible device. A digital display on the device then lays the GPS data over a ready loaded map of the sea floor so the diver knows precisely where he is at on his treasure hunt.

Now, such devices are extremely pricey, and even a diver who has the money will face certain obstructions, for example a limited range of transmission between the floating receiver and the submerged handheld, as well as the need for a most part clear line of sight, as a sufficiently large barrier like a rock or ship will breakup a SONAR signal. As with any emerging technology, the capacities of these devices will possibly continue to increase over time — hopefully with a comparable fall in price as they get even more routine.

An underwater treasure hunt can still make use of a GPS unit in a limited fashion without taking the device underwater. Divers can find the GPS coordinates of known shipwrecks or submerged treasure on the internet and use their GPS devices to navigate to zones of interest. At this point it is just a topic of dropping anchor and diving in. For many divers, the increased level of difficulty affiliated with this sort of treasure hunt offers a challenge more gratifying than a submersible GPS rig-up would.

Studying maps of the seafloor before a treasure hunt is strongly advocated. Such action can increase a diver’s possibilities of finding something valuable and, if nothing else, scale back the possibility of coming up against astonishing hindrances or perils. Submersible hand held display devices preloaded with digital maps can be used to get rid of the need to rely on one’s memory all together.

Whatever technique of underwater treasure hunt a diver proposes to use, there are some basic security concerns to which he should adhere. No diver should ever attempt an underwater treasure hunt alone or without correct SCUBA certification. All equipment being used on the dive should be rated for depths beyond those predicted in the diver’s previous research of the area. This includes watches, oxygen supply, metal detectors and all the other submersible devices. The local Coast Guard post or harbor authority must be aware of any underwater expedition and the dive vessel should be outfitted with reliable means to get in touch with them in the event of an emergency.

Tom one of the principle contributors to the base knowledge, as well as, to the development and expansion of Satellite Treasure Map Information overlaid on Google Maps. Tom has amassed this knowledge thru many years of looking for concealed truths through many various resources.