24 July 2012

Treasure: 48 TONS of silver

Deep-sea explorers have pulled up 48 tons of silver treasure from three miles below the surface of the North Atlantic in what may be the deepest, largest precious metal recovery in history.

The haul was retrieved from the S.S. Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo ship that sank in February 1941.

The expedition, by Odyssey Marine Exploration, a company specializing in shipwreck exploration, recovered 1,203 bars of silver, totaling 1.4 million ounces...

The marine exploration company is also in the process of exploring another British sunken ship, the S.S. Mantola, which is believed to hold an estimated 600,000 ounces of additional U.K.-insured silver.
More details at Discovery News.

4 comments:

  1. Oooh - how cool. Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Will this find drive down the price of silver? ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure it would if it entered "circulation," but I suspect it will be held in reserves to back up debts, currency, or something like that. I don't really know.

      Delete
  3. As of today (2012.08.06) the spot price of gold is about 27.8 USD/oz so the treasure is worth something shy of 39 million USD.

    ReplyDelete