Archival Investigations for Potential Colonial-Era Shipwrecks in Ultra-Deepwater Within the Gulf of Mexico

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, is charged with the responsibility of considering the effects of its actions on significant submerged cultural resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the United States, from State Waters to the limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In an effort to protect submerged cultural resources from potential effects of oil and gas activity within the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), BOEMRE seeks to amass and assess primary archival material relative to early vessel losses (ca. sixteenth to eighteenth century) in Ultra- Deepwater (UDW) (>5,000 feet) within the GOM.