Baltic Shipwrecks Uncovered by Pipeline Probe

Several shipwrecks were discovered in the Baltic Sea as a probe preparing for an installation of a gas pipeline surveyed the sea bed.

Previously unknown shipwrecks, some as old as 1,000 years, were discovered in the Baltic Sea on Monday by Russian-led Nord Stream. The probe was surveying the sea bed route the large gas pipeline will take from Russia to the European Union. After using sonar equipment and discovering uneven surfaces along the sea bottom, crews filmed the area and spotted the wrecks. The ships lie outside Sweden's territorial waters but are within its economic zone.

12 shipwrecks were found, nine of them are considered very old, with hulls still in tact. A senior adviser suggested the ships were from the 17th and 18th centuries, even the Middle Ages.

The wrecks are not in the set path the pipeline will take, but in the anchor corridor, where the ships laying the pipeline will anchor. Since the ships lie at a depth of 328 feet, there were no plans to recover the wrecks.

Over 3,000 shipwrecks have been discovered and mapped in the Baltic, but more than 100,000 are assumed to still be at the bottom. The Baltic Sea is ideal for conserving shipwrecks due to its low temperatures and oxygen levels.

Photo (above right): Wreck of Steamer Vienna in Whitefish Bay, Lake Superior | Painting by Ken Marschall | Courtesy Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society