Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team by Daniel Lenihan

From the Publisher

One of the world's leading underwater archeologists recounts experiences from his 24 years as founder and head of the elite, award-winning Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU) team of the U.S. National Park Service—adventure writing at its best. In Submerged, Lenihan (the co-author with Gene Hackman of the novel Wake of the Perdido Star) takes the reader on a kaleidoscope of underwater experiences—to ancient ruins covered by reservoirs in the desert southwest, to the sacrificial wells of the Mayans, to the lower rings of hell to retrieve the bodies of drowned divers, to gripping accounts of personal survival in underwater caves, ships, and submerged buildings. Among the astonishing, often harrowing assignments he recalls:
• The Isle Royale shipwrecks: Surveying ten large ships sunk from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries in the middle of the frigid and deep Lake Superior.
• The USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor: Executing the largest mapping project ever conducted underwater, and his personal impressions as, the leader of the first expedition to explore and video the entire ship in 1983.
• Investigating the hull of the HL Hunley, the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship, in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War.
• Resurveying of the ships sunk by atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll, including the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga and Japanese battleship Nagato. This fascinating book, written with a mixture of wonder, intensity, pathos, and humor, is not only a unique adventure book, but a work that records, in one volume for the first time, the historic and social significance of the underwater research programs conducted by this remarkable unit of the U.S. National Park Service. Maps, 20 color photographs, index.

Author Biography: Daniel Lenihan is not just an extremist, but an explorer; not just a fun-seeker, but a preservationist; not just a risk-taker, but a nationally recognized scientist, respected in the ranks of park rangers. He has been at the center of many major underwater research projects in the U.S., from the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor to the first expedition to resurvey the sunken ships of Bikini Atoll after they were declared radioactive from nuclear blasts. Lenihan has been diving as a park ranger and archaeologist for the National Park Service (NPS) since 1972. In 1976, he developed the only federal underwater archaeological team in the U.S. and, in 1980, was appointed the first chief of the NPS Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU). Over the last 25 years, Lenihan and the SCRU team have been the subject of national media stories and many TV documentaries on CBS, ABC, BBC, CNN, PBS, The Discovery Channel, and National Geographic. He has written frequently for Natural History and American History, and co-authored with Gene Hackman the well-received sea novel Wake of the Perdido Star. A native New Yorker and former schoolteacher, he lives with his family in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Publishers Weekly

Recounting his 25 years as founder and director of the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit the underwater archeological team of the National Park Service Lenihan (Wake of the Perdido Star, with Gene Hackman) offers an entertaining mix of maritime history, memoir and adventure tale. Started in 1975 to keep fortune hunters from looting national water parks for sunken treasure and damaging vital historical material, Lenihan's unit has explored the wondrous (and deadly) sinkholes in Florida and Mexico; studied shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, Micronesia and places in between; and investigated the remains of the USS Arizona and the ships sunk by nuclear bombs near Bikini atoll. While the author is an authority on sea archeology and naval history, he and his divers are also underwater cowboys and cowgirls, thrilling in the dangers of their extreme sport. A sharp, engaging writer, Lenihan describes the terrifying aspects of his work the bone-chilling cold, impenetrable clouds of silt and the notorious bends with a good dose of black humor. (A surreal trip through an old impoundment house submerged in the reservoir of Amistad Dam in Texas is especially haunting.) Fast paced, full of amiable characters, the book will appeal to divers, maritime enthusiasts and anyone fond of nautical hijinks and swaggering seafarers. Photos and maps not seen by PW. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Lenihan has been diving as a park ranger and archeologist for the National Park Service for some 30 years. He presents the first book on the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU) team of the U.S. National Park Service, a group of archeologists, historians, and photographers whose job is to survey, map, investigate, and protect the shipwrecks and sites that make up America's sunken heritage. Lenihan describes the diving experiences of the SCRU team from 1972 to the present, throughout the U.S. and in Micronesia. Illustrated with 16 pages of color photographs, this insightful, fast-paced text will appeal to readers interested in diving, archeology, American history, adventure, and rescue missions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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