One of the most exciting places at Seafarer Exploration these days is the Wet Storage Facility where all of the suspected artifacts are examined. The trip starts with the Discovery Team as they carefully measure, photograph, and document any potential artifact find. This includes many aspects such as location, length, width, and orientation. Here you can see a 19’ wood feature that was discovered on the Melbourne site along with one of the many spikes adjacent to it. The suspected artifact is then examined in our Wet Storage Facility where it is stored using purified water and established stabilization procedures so it will not degrade during its short stay. The stabilization technician then carefully exposes a small section of the item, if encrusted, and uses an XRF analyzer to determine its metal composition. In this case, the XRF tells us it is 99.99% pure iron. This, along with the examination of a complimentary wood sample indicates a likely period feature. After some more measuring and data logging, the potential artifacts are returned to the ocean and marked with a numbered pole tag in case we ever need to find them again. BTW, that cool wood piece with the metal band you see in the pictures is from the mid-1900s according to our archaeologist. It is likely part of an old fishing pier or barge. We can tell by the composition of the band, round rivets, round tensioning rod and the fact it was welded together.