In the Caribbean waters off the coast of Colombia, treasure hunters have found what many are calling the holy grail of shipwrecks with a treasure of gold, silver, and emeralds that could be worth as much as $17 billion!
Wikimedia Commons The search was conducted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which used an underwater submarine to investigate the ocean depths. The first sign that they’d found the shipwreck were the cannons strewn all over the bottom of the ocean floor. Seeing that the cannons were engraved with dolphins confirmed that they belonged to the San Jose, a Spanish galleon lost more than 300 years ago. Here’s more from CBS News: “I just sat there for about 10 minutes and smiled,” said Jeff Kaeli, a research engineer with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Kaeli was alone in his bunk on the search vessel when he spotted the cannons. “I’m not a marine archaeologist, but…I know what a cannon looks like. So in that moment, I guess I was the only person in the world who knew we’d found the shipwreck,” he said. The exact location of the wreckage is still a secret, but it was discovered in November 2015 off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia. Its cargo of gold, silver, and emeralds could be worth as much as $17 billion. The Remus 6000, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, found the ship almost 2,000 feet below the surface. The underwater robot scanned the sea floor using long-range sonar then went back and took pictures of any objects that seemed out of the ordinary.
Researchers and the Remus 6000 The San Jose has been sitting at the bottom of the ocean since British warships sunk it – and its crew of 600 men – in 1701. The location is being kept secret because of a dispute over who actually owns it. Spain says it belongs to them, but Colombia is saying the same thing. Whoever’s right, it’s going to be excited to see these artifacts when they’re brought up to land.