Aqua Survey, Inc. is pleased to announce the recovery of several “Pieces of Eight” and other artifacts from the most famous Spanish treasure galleon ever lost at sea, the Nuestra Sénora de Atocha. The discovery of carpenter’s tools, pottery shards, vessel spikes, musket balls and silver treasure resulted from more than a year’s planning and field work. Contracted by Mel Fisher’s Treasures, Aqua Survey’s technical staff developed an electromagnetic (EM) detection system that could be used 40 miles offshore. To succeed in 50 foot water depths we had to waterproof existing land-based surveying technologies (normally used for Unexploded Bomb (UXO) searches) and greatly increase the systems detection range.

Pictured above is a modern day treasure map from a section of our survey area. The small green plus symbols represent magnetometer survey lanes. The red circles represent magnetometer targets (“mag hits” or iron-based hits). The hollow grey circle represents prior investigations that came up empty. The gold, blue and green symbols represent prior investigations that produced Atocha cultural resources or treasure. The blue cross-haired circles are EM hits identified by Aqua Survey’s system. Investigation of areas associated with these hits has begun to produce treasure for our client. How much treasure? Only time and hard work will tell.