Source: ‘North Arm Graveyard’ 34″48’39.53″ S 138″31’47.29″ E Google Earth 31/01/2010. 07/03/2013

Adjacent to Port Adelaide, South Australia lies an ideal ‘laboratory’ for testing our methods. This is a ship graveyard of over twenty hulks, variations ranging over time periods of construction, materials, condition and immediate environment.

ShipShapeSearchers are working closely with ARA – Airborne Research Australia, School of the Environment, Flinders University, who are assisting by supplying airborne remote sensing data. Above is a satellite image of the area. Below is a photo of a hulk Moe and pontoon. Below that is Sunbeam. The last two images show how these and other hulks appear even in low res LiDAR at  high water.

Moe and Pontoon (photo A Moss)

Bow of Sunbeam (photo A Moss)

Sunbeam, Killarney, pontoon and barge/dredge (under foliage) in LiDAR. (data ARA)

Sunbeam and other hulks in LiDAR. (data ARA)

The LiDAR images above come from data collected for purposes other than archaeology. They serve as a demonstration of how we may find ‘ship shapes’ within this data. Our next goal is to test findings in a dedicated high resolution survey of the area.