Expedite Your Underwater Project Safely And Efficiently
We have years of experience helping clients comply with the cultural resource regulations pertaining to their projects. With the nation’s brightest maritime archaeologists at your side, you can count on a process done correctly and quickly, no matter what obstacles may occur.
Our full-service maritime division tackles Section 106 and NEPA regulations for federal and state agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and private companies. From harbor expansions and beach renourishments to cable burial and offshore wind projects, we deliver solutions for the compliance challenges on your plate while ensuring correct preservation of submerged cultural resources.
Our marine archaeologists use state-of-the-art technology and safety equipment to conduct swift, safe geophysical/remote sensing reconnaissance surveys, diver investigations, artifact/data recovery, and more. Our team is always proactive, adhering to best practices below and above the water to meet your urgent deadlines and minimize impact from any challenges encountered along the way.
Our Comprehensive Range Of Maritime Archaeology Services
As a business-focused cultural resource management firm, our experts balance federal, state, and local regulations with your goals, prioritizing speed, correctness, collaboration, and transparency so you can obtain your needed permits as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible.
Click on the titles below to learn more about our maritime archaeology services:
We provide clients with in-depth records to assess archaeological potential. This information acts as the starting point, with data added by our teams as they further develop the historical context of targets as they relate to your project area.
Our specialists use satellite positioning and navigation systems, terrestrial and marine magnetometers, side-scan sonar systems, and subbottom profilers. These systems can tackle the most challenging projects and are complemented by our in-house GIS software.
We capture detailed information on submerged historic and prehistoric resources for reconnaissance and significance assessments. Our dive teams can execute hands-on assessments or use subsurface testing utilizing a small dredge or hydroprobe to determine the presence, composition, and depth of burial of buried resources.
Our dive operations and safety plans are geared predominantly toward Surface Supplied systems due to their inherent safety factor. In addition, we possess all required insurance for underwater archaeology, including Longshoremen and Jones Act insurance for maritime activities.
We design and conduct archaeological excavations that maximize field data recovery when testing beyond surveys is required. Analysis of this field data and artifacts provide a conclusive assessment of significance and integrity for the National Register of Historic Places eligibility determinations.
When it comes to underwater data recovery, our heavy equipment includes tugs, crane barges, and commercial dive teams. However, our full range of data recovery services includes professional project design, intensive-level research, exacting field techniques, technical reports, and much more.
Our laboratory personnel have extensive experience processing artifact collections and samples recovered from field investigations. We catalog all artifacts in a custom-designed database and inventory, prepared per state curation guidelines or the National Park Service’s Collections Management System (ICMS). Furthermore, our archaeologists are also trained in marine artifact conservation practices to safely handle artifacts from an underwater context.
Once archaeological sites are located, we then define the type and extent of potential project impacts, fully assessing these impacts to aid planning and for use in environmental documents.
Our archaeologists have extensive experience with arranging for our federal, state, and private industry clients’ public relation efforts including media events, public presentations, and teacher’s workshops. Additional public relations efforts include photography and videography of fieldwork activities for presentation to agencies for dissemination via social media.
Top Tech For Faster, Better Data
We equip our maritime archaeologists with highly accurate GNSS systems, ultra-short baseline underwater systems, diver tracking, photogrammetry, magnetometers, side-scan sonars, subbottom profilers, and multibeam echo sounders. This lets us precisely identify submerged cultural resources and provide geospatial context during data recoveries swiftly.
We’ve Got Safety Covered
Our team’s safety always comes first. We’re certified to conduct hard hat/helmet diving operations, use commercial-style surface-supply rigs with Kirby Morgan dive helmets, and fully comply with the OSHA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regulations for scientific diving.
Regulatory Know-How You Won’t Find Anywhere Else
Our team boasts decades of combined experience, putting us in a prime position to navigate your maritime project’s unique compliance challenges. We work closely with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs), Bureau of Archaeological Research (BAR), and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to fulfill Section 106, NEPA, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (36 CFR Part 800), and the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987.
Expertise To Tackle Maritime Environments Anywhere
Every maritime environment has unique traits, and nobody knows them better than us. Whether the high winds of the Atlantic, the steep bathymetric decline of the Pacific, the cold waters of the Great Lakes, or the logistics for international work in the Caribbean and elsewhere, we’re experienced in delivering on your urgent needs in the world’s most demanding maritime environments.
CASE STUDY
CSS Georgia, Savannah Harbor, GA
DCA/GEC, A Joint Venture LLC for Savannah District, USACE and Georgia Ports Authority
Previous surveys identified the remains of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War ironclad-ram within the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project APE (SHEP). However, as proposed, the SHEP would have adversely affected this NRHP-listed site.
Therefore, in 2015, and under subcontract to DCA/GEC, A Joint Venture LLC for Savannah District, USACE and Georgia Ports Authority, we fully archaeologically documented and systematically recovered the remains of the CSS Georgia in concert with the U.S. Navy, Supervisor of Salvage and the U.S. Navy’s Mobile Diving Salvage Unit 2.
Despite zero underwater visibility and other extreme conditions, our archaeologists maximized recovery efforts with a clean safety record and deliverables completed on time with no budget overruns.
NATIONWIDE OFFICES GIVE YOU ACCESS TO EXPERT TEAMS ACROSS THE COUNTRY
With offices spanning the country, we can deploy field crews quickly and efficiently to get your projects moving no matter where you are.
- Tuscaloosa, AL
- Phoenix, AZ
- Tempe, AZ
- Tucson, AZ
- Bay Area, CA
- Fresno, CA
- Los Angeles, CA
- Redlands, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- San Diego, CA
- Denver, CO
- Ignacio, CO
- Gainesville, FL
- Lakeland, FL
- Pensacola, FL
- Tallahassee, FL
- Tampa Bay, FL
- Columbus, GA
- Littleton, MA
- Dexter, MI
- Traverse City, MI
- Minneapolis, MN
- Las Vegas, NV
- Reno, NV
- Albuquerque, NM
- Buffalo, NY
- New York, NY
- Tarboro, NC
- Columbus, OH
- Portland, OR
- Philadelphia, PA
- West Chester, PA
- Memphis, TN
- Austin, TX
- Ogden, UT
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Chantilly, VA
- Richmond, VA
- Milwaukee, WI
PaleoWest Offices- Commonwealth Heritage Group Offices
PaleoWest Offices
Commonwealth Heritage Group OfficesLet's Talk
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