Not too many details on this, but Odyssey Marine Exploration has brought an estimated 500,000 coins into the United States from a shipwreck in the Atlantic.  The company isn't describing the wreck or its location but there are clues that the treasure may be from a 400 yr old ship sunk some 40 miles off the southwest coast of England.  That puts it in international waters, and Odyssey has a court order granting them rights to salvage.

  MSNBC story...

Here's an interesting article about the amount and types of fish life found on artificial reefs near Miami Florida.  Not to give too much away, but the shipwrecks host a similar amount of fish as do the natural reefs.  :-)

  Miami Herald article...

Here's a nice update on Graham Hawkes' activities.  He's still planning to build a maximum ocean depth vehicle, which will fly similar to his earlier DeepFlight craft, but this one will be able to descend to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. 

This very deep bit of the ocean, over 36,000ft, has been visited only once by a manned vessel.  The Trieste carried Dr Jacques Piccard and Lt Donald Walsh on a five hour descent to the bottom in 1960.  Graham Hawkes new design should be able to make the trip down in one hour and provide excellent maneuverability on the whole dive. 

Is a descent to the Challenger Deep equivalent to NASA's Apollo flight to the moon?  Is this a good private industry challenge, similar to spaceflight's X-Prize?  More on this later but for now here's the article on Graham Hawkes:

  Monterey Herald article...

The elusive giant squid has finally been filmed alive and feeding.  Japanese scientists created a number of fishing rigs consisting of a float, baited hooks and a camera and strobe light that fired every 30 seconds.  In September of 2004 they got a set of stop-action photos of a 26 foot long giant squid attacking their bait at 3000 feet.

What the photos show is all good news.  People weren't sure how a giant squid would behave: they reportedly fought sperm whales and in ancient lore dragged whole ships under, but in more sane moments we realized that most animals living in the deep ocean have a low activity level because of the lack of food and cold temperatures.

But in these photos the squid energetically attacks the bait, using its long feeding tentacles to grab its prey.  It snagged a tentacle on a bait hook and struggled for four hours before losing its arm and escaping.  This 26ft long specimen is roughly half the maximum length expected for its species.  I think we can breathe a sigh of relief that the Giant Squid Battle from 20,000 Leagues under the Sea was not as far fetched as we had feared. 

Read more details at these websites:

 NY Times article (free registration required)

Reuters article

Side scan sonar (also sometimes called side-scan sonar, sidescan sonar, side looking sonar and side-looking sonar) is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea floor. This technique is used for a wide variety of purposes, including creation ofnautical charts and detection and identification of underwater objects and bathymetric features. It may be used to conduct surveys for maritime archaeology ; in conjunction with seafloor samples it is able to provide an understanding of the surface geology of the seabed. Side scan sonar imagery is also a commonly used tool to detect debris items and other obstructions on the seafloor that may be hazardous to shipping or to seafloor installations by the oil and gas industry. In addition, the status of pipelines and cables on the seafloor can be investigated using side scan sonar. Side scan data is typically acquired along with bathymetric soundings and sub-bottom data which provides a glimpse of the shallow structure of the seabed. Side scan sonar is also used for fisheries research, dredging operations and environmental studies. It also has military applications including mine detection.

Dave Crooks hunted treasure in the Florida Keys, working for Mel Fisher, and back in the mid-1970s helped salvage the famous Nuestra Senora de Atocha.  Along the way Dave became a devoted collector of sunken treasure books, articles, and all types of printed materials.  He's put a bibliography of his collection online and it contains descriptions of over 850 publications including books and National Geographic articles.

SunkenTreasureBooks.com