A&S Alumni Academy – The Science of Shipwrecks

USS Monitor. Titanic. Edmund Fitzgerald. Shipwrecks open up the past, but there is so much more than just looking at the data. What is it about shipwrecks that captures the imagination? How do today’s scientists look at shipwrecks to understand the balance between humans and the environment? How do we bridge the gap between finding and analyzing shipwrecks—uncovering the story behind the disaster?

On Thursday, October 24, join Cathryn Newton, dean emerita of the College of Arts and Sciences; longtime senior advisor to the Chancellor and Provost for Faculty Engagement, and professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences to examine some of history’s most fascinating wrecks from antiquity to the 21st century. Learn how shipwrecks can be understood as large fossils that sink to the bottom of the sea; how, since shipwrecks are often accidental, they often provide a snapshot of the past as it really was; and how maritime tragedies unite science and human culture to illuminate history.