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Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Ric Gillespie on July 25, 2017, 04:26:13 PM

Title: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 25, 2017, 04:26:13 PM
During the recent expedition, one of the teams came across what they believed was a piece of Norwich City wreckage at the NW tip of the island.   It's a sheet of steel reportedly measuring about three feet by four feet and one half an inch thick. There was also a second piece that was slightly smaller that you can just see peeking over a rock behind it (see photo).  If NC debris, we would have to greatly adjust our thinking about the distribution of shipwreck debris.  However, the sheet is unlike any NC debris we've seen in that the rivets have apparently rusted away and/or fallen out. Rivets on NC wreckage remain in place (see photo).   But if this thing is not NC debris, where did it come from?  It doesn't look like it would float worth a damn. 
The location (see photo) is not far from the base of the first Bushnell tower.  Is there anything in the Bushnell Survey literature that might account for such a steel plate?
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Matt Revington on July 26, 2017, 11:36:04 AM
The towers erected by the Bushnell would have been Bilby Towers.  I have been looking at online pictures, they appear to have been mostly metal beams, narrower bits without large plates like that in the photos.  Where the platforms are shown they look like wood planks.  The bit that is not shown in photos (that I have found so far ) is the base which might have had more substantial parts to it.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 26, 2017, 11:43:34 AM
We know they were set on concrete pads which still exist.  I see at least two, maybe three, finished edges on the steel plate but the left edge looks like it failed, which implies that it was part of a larger structure.  Strange.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Bill Mangus on July 26, 2017, 02:46:51 PM
Perhaps they scavenged something from the NC as they were building the towers?
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: James Champion on July 26, 2017, 06:07:31 PM
The piece of metal is definitely meant for riveted construction. Welded construction on ships slowly replaced riveted construction methods in the 30's. Additionally heat and/or stress and/or corrosion have caused all the rivets to fail and have left the piece of metal warped. It can't float and could not have been carried there by birds or fish. It also appears to me too misshapen and heavy to have been transported to the island by people for any normally useful purpose. The little that can be seen of a second piece of metal with even more irregular edges reinforces this observation.

Occam's razor - It's from the Norwich City. 

Could be from near the keel, bilge, or bottom hull portions that haven't been seen by Tighar. These portions may have been up against sand or coral and less exposed to marine growth and less exposed to corrosion causing air. The second picture of Norwich City wreckage appear to be of single-row riveted-sheet to right-angle construction which would fit with lower strength upper-superstructure wall and compartment construction debris.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Bill Mangus on July 27, 2017, 06:30:58 AM
I wonder if the big bit in photo #1 is part of the boiler that went missing sometime last year.  The multiple-row rivet pattern in photo #1 seems close to what can be seen of the remaining boiler in the upper-right corner of photo 2. 
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 27, 2017, 07:07:16 AM
The problem with the debris at the NW tip being from NC is its location.  It's more than half a mile and around a corner from the shipwreck.  How did it get there? NC debris does not travel northward.  There is no known NC debris on the beach, on the reef flat, or in the ocean more than a few meters north of the shipwreck. There are no natural forces (wind or water) that could move it that far without also also moving other ship wreckage northward.  If it's NC debris, someone brought it there (I sure wouldn't want that job).

Occam's Razor actually argues for the debris being associated with the only known nearby activity that involved heavy construction - the erection of the Bushnell tower.

Occam's Razor is widely misunderstood.  It does not hold that the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true.  Occam's Razor - "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" - holds that "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity."  In other words, "... if there are several possible ways that something might have happened, the way that uses the fewest guesses is probably the right one. However, Occam's razor only applies when the simple explanation and complex explanation both work equally well. If a more complex explanation does a better job than a simpler one, then you should use the complex one." (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor)

The Niku Hypothesis is a classic example.  It is more complex than Crashed & Sank but, as an explanation for the known facts (post-loss radio signals, Bevington Object, castaway, Seven site artifacts, etc.) it works far better.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Jon Romig on July 27, 2017, 05:46:04 PM
Why would someone transport something heavy and apparently useless in a maritime environment, very likely by boat?

Something with a shape, or with holes in it, that makes it easy to attach a line?

Anchor.

Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Bill Mangus on July 28, 2017, 09:31:22 AM
Maybe not the NC crew as they were already assured of rescue and did need to go to that much effort.  No mention of it in the investigation records. 

I can see the Bushnell survey crew using something like that, though.  The plates might have helped to support a pole or beacon or light marking that end of the island.  There is mention in the Bushnell records of the crew hanging a light on the mast of the NC to help with station keeping at night.  Perhaps they needed something on that point also.

Ric, is the spot where these plates are now once much/any further inland? Has the reef eroded away underneath them?
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 28, 2017, 01:07:21 PM
Ric, is the spot where these plates are now once much/any further inland? Has the reef eroded away underneath them?

No. That end of the island is pretty much solid coral.  No sand.  It looks the same over the years.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Matt Revington on July 28, 2017, 01:20:06 PM
How often have Tighar expeditions looked at that point of the island, and is it likely that they would have seen those sheets if they have been there on the reef since ~1939?  Could the sheets have been further up in the vegetation and been washed out more recently by a storm?
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 28, 2017, 01:23:16 PM
How often have Tighar expeditions looked at that point of the island, and is it likely that they would have seen those sheets if they have been there on the reef since ~1939?  Could the sheets have been further up in the vegetation and been washed out more recently by a storm?

It's not an area of interest. We've spent very little time up there.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Greg Daspit on July 28, 2017, 02:03:21 PM
I think it is possible that the Bushnell tower construction crew used Norwich City Debris for some reason.  For example, a flat hard surface to use as an anvil to fix something.  Maybe used as shim at the tower base.
If there is nothing to tie to on the edge of the reef, native fisherman may have used it to tie fishing lines to at a good fishing spot.
There could be some unknown reasons we can’t think of for why it may have been moved by people.

The interesting thing to me is there are two pieces of debris very close together.
The location at the shoreline and the proximity of two pieces close together suggest something bigger may have washed up and broke apart there.
But the rivet holes suggest it was very old. At the same time its level of corrosion looks very different than the steel at the Norwich City wreck. It could have been out of the water or buried for a long time.
How could rivets erode away and leave the main piece relatively un corroded?
How could that piece have broken up without some rivets remaining?
How could a broken piece like that possibly be part of something that floated?
It’s all weird. My best guess is the pieces are from the Norwich City and were used for some purpose near that site. Rivets may have been removed by man for that purpose. After being used it was abandoned and left somewhere near the shore.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Jon Romig on July 28, 2017, 08:39:43 PM
I think we generally agree that this debris is probably from the Norwich City. I also think that human transport to the northern point is quite unlikely, and in any case it doesn't appear to be particularly useful in the context of the search for Amelia.

What is interesting and useful is if this debris was transported north by currents, wind or waves. I think this is far more likely, and very relevant to our search:

Given all we know, it is extremely unlikely that this piece of debris - as it is currently seen on the reef - could have been moved from the wreck to this spot by currents and/or wave action. The debris is steel and would sink like a stone - it is extremely unlikely that waves would have moved it half a mile North on the reef (but not impossible I admit). Additionally, the current always (?) flows toward the south.

Thus we must conclude that the debris most probably floated to the Northern point, attached to something buoyant. Then, over time, the rivets rusted out and the rest of the wreckage rotted or corroded or was swept away.

If we accept the above, there must be times when winds and waves can move a floating object north along the reef, even against the prevailing current. Notably this could occur during a storm that might also sweep a stranded Electra off the reef.

That means that a future wide-area underwater search should look not only to the South and West, but to the North of Niku as well. All else being equal, there is a 33% chance that a floating Electra was swept North.

Jon


Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 29, 2017, 07:06:52 AM
Regardless of where the debris at the NW tip came from, any wide-area underwater search for Electra debris will, of course, include the area north of where the plane presumably went into the water.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Brian Tannahill on July 29, 2017, 09:26:43 AM
Ric,

Am I correct in thinking that the Mystery Debris was not recovered from the island?  These two pieces are heavy, and the transportation costs could be significant.

A piece of steel this size weighs around 250 pounds / 115 kg. (36 x 48 inches, x .5 = 864 cubic inches; a cubic foot is 1728 cubic inches, so this is one half of a cubic foot.  A cubic foot of steel weighs about 500 pounds (http://www.portlandbolt.com/technical/tools/plate-weight-calculator/).)  The rivet holes would reduce the weight somewhat, and the measurements are approximate, but that should be a decent estimate.

Some other questions, assuming for the moment that these pieces are from the Norwich City:

Could the fire on board the Norwich City have damaged the rivets so that they deteriorated more quickly than the rest of the piece?  And a related question, is there any evidence the piece was exposed to fire?

Is the pattern of rivets - double rows of rivets at the edge, and a single row within the piece - characteristic of any particular part of the ship?

It took a lot of force to warp the metal into its current shape.  Could this piece be from a section of the NC that was twisted when the stern broke off?

An additional possibility, and this might be closer to wild speculation:  Could these pieces have been used as counterweights on a pulley system, for hauling equipment or people up the tower? 
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 29, 2017, 09:42:59 AM
Am I correct in thinking that the Mystery Debris was not recovered from the island?

Yes, you are correct.

Could the fire on board the Norwich City have damaged the rivets so that they deteriorated more quickly than the rest of the piece? 

I don't know if that's possible. None of the other pieces of NC wreckage has missing rivets.

And a related question, is there any evidence the piece was exposed to fire?

I don't know. What would such evidence look like?

Is the pattern of rivets - double rows of rivets at the edge, and a single row within the piece - characteristic of any particular part of the ship?

I don't know enough about the ship to answer that.

It took a lot of force to warp the metal into its current shape.  Could this piece be from a section of the NC that was twisted when the stern broke off?

Maybe, but it looks too thin to be hull plating.

An additional possibility, and this might be closer to wild speculation:  Could these pieces have been used as counterweights on a pulley system, for hauling equipment or people up the tower?

I don't know, but I doubt it.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Brian Tannahill on July 29, 2017, 10:38:13 AM
And a related question, is there any evidence the piece was exposed to fire?
I don't know. What would such evidence look like?

I've seen sheet aluminum discolored from being close to a flame.  Steel might show a similar discoloration, especially from an intense fire such as the Norwich City, but that's way beyond my expertise.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Jerry Germann on July 29, 2017, 02:41:18 PM
(snip)
But the rivet holes suggest it was very old. At the same time its level of corrosion looks very different than the steel at the Norwich City wreck. It could have been out of the water or buried for a long time.
How could rivets erode away and leave the main piece relatively un corroded?
How could that piece have broken up without some rivets remaining?
How could a broken piece like that possibly be part of something that floated?
It’s all weird. My best guess is the pieces are from the Norwich City and were used for some purpose near that site. Rivets may have been removed by man for that purpose. After being used it was abandoned and left somewhere near the shore.


Googling a bit, I came upon this site;  http://njscuba.net/artifacts/obj_hull_steel.php ...seems the old time rivets dissolve more readily than the material that it holds together.
But that information doesn't seem to help much with how the rivets disappeared from this sheet,( does not rule out mother nature or man's hand), though I favor mother nature, as it would seem a huge task to remove those rivets without leaving chisel marks surrounding the holes, or using a large enough drill on that isolated island, all the while with the sheet out on the reef or still attached to the parent body.
 It is interesting that the plate debris we see around the Norwich City winch has all the rivets intact, however what of the constantly submerged plates on the bottom of the ship, or those that had fallen off early on in the eroding process and into the water nearby, .....it would be interesting to observe to see if rivets are present in them or not.
As far as what appears to be warpage on the sheet,.....factory shaping to create the contours in the hull?
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 31, 2017, 11:08:59 AM
We now have a second photo of the mystery debris.  It seems to be a single piece. It’s apparently L shaped and it is clearly a piece ripped from a larger structure. For a piece of plate to rip like that, the larger structure has to be immobile (the classic irresistible force hitting the immovable object) and the rivets must be present and strong when that happens.  Two of the edges are finished edges that were once riveted to the larger structure with double-rows of rivets.  There’s no damage to the finished edges so they must have separated from the larger structure due to the loss of the rivets.  So we have an implied two-part sequence:
1. A big chunk gets ripped out of a larger, stable structure.
2. Rivets holding the big chunk together eventually weaken and drop away, allowing the piece we see on the North Cape to separate.

Finally, the piece must arrive on the shore BEFORE a subsequent event deposits a big ol’ coral rock on top of it.

I still have no idea where the thing came from but I think there’s more of it offshore the north cape. I have to wonder if there was a ship lost out there that we don’t now about.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 31, 2017, 12:30:48 PM
I think you're pushing it Leo.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Matt Revington on July 31, 2017, 01:18:45 PM
Footings for the bilby towers for use on soil were supposed to be as shown in the attached diagram with a board inserted into a 4 foot hole and the  inner and outer towers bolted to it.  I wonder if the Bushnell anticipated that this would not be possible on the coral reefs and picked up scrap plating from some port to bring to the island.   Then they could just anchor the plate to the concrete pads they poured and bolt the tower legs to the plate.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Ric Gillespie on July 31, 2017, 01:45:42 PM
I wonder if the Bushnell anticipated that this would not be possible on the coral reefs and picked up scrap plating from some port to bring to the island.   Then they could just anchor the plate to the concrete pads they poured and bolt the tower legs to the plate.

Yeah, but the L shape would be hard to explain.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Greg Daspit on July 31, 2017, 03:26:50 PM
The finish on  the Mystery Debris looks less “crusty” than any of the examples I have seen of NC debris so far. 

Can we compare the Mystery Debris to Norwich City steel that went through different environments? For example:
1.   Steel that is on the reef getting water and air every day.(One example already provided)
2.   Steel underwater a long time. For example, what does the steel on the stern that was discovered by ROV in 2012 look like?
3.   Steel above the water level most of the time( like on the very top part of the boiler that was above water for most of the time. Any other close up pictures of the boilers?).

Assuming the NC shipwreck is the culprit, it’s hard to see how debris, that can’t float, went that direction and got that far without several other examples seen between it and the wreck.
It could be the way it moved is the anomaly. For example, take the boiler disappearance Bill Mangus mentioned before. What is interesting about the boiler is it could move differently than other debris and its top parts had less exposure to water for a longer time. Maybe if storm surge forced it on its side it could roll far relatively quickly. I don’t see any familiar pattern to the rivets but maybe it rolled with other parts it was connected to, and then that part became detached when rolling over the north edge.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Bill Mangus on July 31, 2017, 05:49:20 PM
Talking about contrary movement; Ric check me on this. Prevailing winds and current are from NE, pushing most debris SW towards the opening to the lagoon. I may be incorrectly remembering but wasn't the NC driven aground in a NW gale? If a similar storm happened in the past year or so,that would have driven the missing boiler and perhaps other items towards the point in question.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Greg Daspit on July 31, 2017, 07:58:08 PM
I wonder if the big bit in photo #1 is part of the boiler that went missing sometime last year.  The multiple-row rivet pattern in photo #1 seems close to what can be seen of the remaining boiler in the upper-right corner of photo 2.
Bill, Can you point me to where it was reported that a boiler went missing last year?
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Martin X. Moleski, SJ on July 31, 2017, 09:00:36 PM
Bill, Can you point me to where it was reported that a boiler went missing last year?

He may be referring to "The Long Farewell." (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/80_LongFarewell/80_LongFarewellNC.html)
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Greg Daspit on July 31, 2017, 10:02:15 PM
Bill, Can you point me to where it was reported that a boiler went missing last year?

He may be referring to "The Long Farewell." (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/80_LongFarewell/80_LongFarewellNC.html)

Thank you Marty.
I mistakenly thought "Tank 3" was the boiler in the images I had seen before. The boiler is noted as missing in the 2015 picture. I don't see it in the 2010 picture. It seems to have been shifty.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Patrick Dickson on August 01, 2017, 04:53:33 PM
I know its a l o n g s h o t but could the debris possibly be from the LORAN station...or the heavy equipment that was used to build the station and dismantle it ??
The debris appears to be too heavy for any of the machinery, tanks, etc at the station, but maybe about right weight for a 40's bulldozer ?? Could 70 years of storms move the debris that far ??
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Greg Daspit on August 01, 2017, 06:14:50 PM
I know its a l o n g s h o t but could the debris possibly be from the LORAN station...or the heavy equipment that was used to build the station and dismantle it ??
The debris appears to be too heavy for any of the machinery, tanks, etc at the station, but maybe about right weight for a 40's bulldozer ?? Could 70 years of storms move the debris that far ??

This has some information of they building of the station starting on page 89
https://www.uscg.mil/history/stations/loran_volume_2.pdf

Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Brian Tannahill on August 02, 2017, 06:39:19 AM
I couldn't get the USCG site to load, but Google has a cached version of the document (https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b2ncKC30R5cJ:https://www.uscg.mil/history/stations/loran_volume_2.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us). 

It's HTML instead of pdf, which is nice, but doesn't have the photos that seem to have been in the original.
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Matt Revington on August 02, 2017, 09:40:34 AM
In the Smithsonian archive there is a link to book/paper by ichythiologist Leonard P. Schultz,
Schultz, Leonard P. (1943) “Fishes of the Phoenix and Samoan Islands collected in 1939 during the expedition of the U.S.S. "Bushnell."
https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/auth_exp_fbr_eace0112
I see that this was mentioned previously on the old forum in 1999.  There is another link to his log, which I find no reference to on the Tighar site, and which might contain things not in the book. "This volume is a field journal in which Leonard P. Schultz documents his participation in a navy surveying expedition on the U.S.S. Bushnell to islands of the South Pacific in 1939."
https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/fbr_item_modsi5773
Since he was an Icthyologist he was probably not hanging out with the survey guys but there might be something of interest in it about the survey.  Might be worth a look.
The whole set of records can be seen using this search:
https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/search?query=%22Navy+Surveying+Expedition+to+the+Phoenix+and+Samoan+Islands%2C+1939.%22&page=1&perpage=10&sort=relevancy&view=list
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Arthur Rypinski on August 04, 2017, 10:49:17 AM
to all-
herewith a second piece of 3' x 4' half-inch steel plate with missing rivets.  This piece is located perhaps 100-200' south of the Norwich City wreckage just off the beach/reef border.  I saw other pieces of debris with missing rivets.

adr
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Jon Romig on August 04, 2017, 11:42:09 AM
to all-
herewith a second piece of 3' x 4' half-inch steel plate with missing rivets.  This piece is located perhaps 100-200' south of the Norwich City wreckage just off the beach/reef border.  I saw other pieces of debris with missing rivets.

adr

Interesting. This piece appears to be very similar to the wreckage at the North Cape.

If we accept that both pieces have the same source, it is less likely that the source is an unknown wreck, tower or other construction at the North Cape, and much more likely that it is the Norwich City.

Which leaves open the interesting (and likely unanswerable) question of how the piece at the North Cape got to its current  location. I still like the ad-hoc boat anchor theory, although a piece of coral would appear to suit. Did the settlers use canoes or boats outside the lagoon?

Jon
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Kevin Weeks on August 04, 2017, 12:12:30 PM


It took a lot of force to warp the metal into its current shape.  Could this piece be from a section of the NC that was twisted when the stern broke off?

Maybe, but it looks too thin to be hull plating.


half inch hull plating was quite heavy at the time. the thickest readily available plating in 1911 was 1" according to the many sources that research the Titanic also built in that year. So much so that things like reinforcements were made from two sheets of 1" plate riveted together instead of thicker material. The 882', 46,000 ton titanic used one inch plate. Given the Norwich City was 397' and 8730 tons it would use significantly thinner hull plating.

I have also read that many manufacturers would use iron rivets in the steel plates still because they had a hard time forming the steel rivets correctly. the outer section of the hull plate should have a countersink to the hole. the outer plating would be formed and attached differently than other structures to maintain strength without sacrificing hydrodynamic efficiency or ease of building.

however these pieces landed where they did, my armchair theory would be it was hull plating torn off during the initial impact with the reef
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Bill Mangus on August 25, 2017, 07:44:18 AM
Hey Leon,

I was beginning to wonder the same thing myself.  Summer vacation?

Maybe Ric's latest post on the blog and the latest issue of Tighar Tracks blew everyone away.

Maybe we need a roll call thread.

 ;D
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Diane James on August 25, 2017, 09:47:21 AM
Here, Teacher! ;)
Title: Re: Mystery Debris
Post by: Martin X. Moleski, SJ on August 25, 2017, 05:33:31 PM
Maybe we need a roll call thread.


I'm here, but I never contribute to thread drift.   ::)