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+--- Thread: Article How many shipwrecks are there in the world's oceans? (/thread-14231.html)
How many shipwrecks are there in the world's oceans? - C C - Jun 13, 2023
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230609-how-many-shipwrecks-are-there-in-the-worlds-oceans
EXCERPTS: . . . So, how many are there in total – and how many still remain hidden in the depths of the ocean?
There are several databases of the world's shipwrecks, each of which has a slightly different estimate for the total number that has been found. The online service wreck site has a catalogue of 209,640 boats known to have sunk, 179,110 of which have a known location. The Global Maritime Wrecks Database (GMWD), on the other hand, contains the records of more than 250,000 sunken vessels, though some of these still haven't been found.
According to one estimate, around 15,000 ships sank during World War Two alone – there are forgotten battleships and tankers strewn from the Pacific to the Atlantic, gradually bleeding oil, chemicals and heavy metals into the surrounding water as they decay.
In fact, it's thought the shipwrecks that have been documented only represent a small fraction of the total. According to an analysis by Unesco, there are over three million resting undiscovered in the world's oceans.
These elusive relics are unlikely to be evenly distributed. As you would expect, there are a number of wreck hotspots – maritime graveyards along popular or perilous routes, which have proved to be fertile hunting grounds in the past.
[...] It's now possible to build up a picture of the ocean floor even in the deepest water – in 2019, researchers discovered the resting place of the destroyer USS Johnston 6km (3.7 miles) deep in the Philippine Trench. (Read more from BBC Future about how the world's deepest shipwreck was found.) Then earlier this year, scientists built a digital twin of the Titanic in three dimensions, based on surveys of the wreck on the Atlantic Ocean floor.
As a result, the oceans are giving up their secrets at an unprecedented rate... (MORE - missing details)