[meteorite-list] Controversial Ship Leaves Mexico

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 13:24:53 2005
Message-ID: <200503021833.j22IXNH17881_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/03/01/mexico.seismic.ship.ap/

Controversial ship leaves Mexico
Associated Press
March 2, 2005

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- The U.S. research ship Maurice Ewing left
Mexico Tuesday after a string of controversies caused by the vessel's
sonic-pulse experiments and its collision with a coral reef.

In its first public explanation of the February 14 accident in which the
ship ran aground on a coral reef, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory, which operates the vessel, said the crew had relied
on apparently flawed or misleading navigational charts.

"The ship's charts indicated adequate water depth at the location of the
grounding," the observatory said in a press statement. "There was no
damage to the vessel."

Mexican authorities had claimed the reef was clearly marked on maps, and
had called the accident -- which damage about 20 square yards (meters)
of underwater rock formations and about 10 square yards (meters) of
coral -- "inexplicable," considering the ship's state-of-the-art equipment.

On Monday the observatory paid a fine of 2,221,720 pesos ($200,000,
euro150,000) for damaging the reef, located about 30 miles (48 kms) off
the Yucatan peninsula.

"The research vessel Maurice Ewing sailed from Progresso, Mexico,
Tuesday, after completing a research mission that began on January
12th," according to the press statement.

The observatory said the international research team had completed its
five-week research mission examining the Chicxulub crater to learn about
the asteroid impact that might have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The team included scientists from Mexico's National Autonomous
University, the University of Texas Institute of Geophysics, and the
Universities of Cambridge and London in the United Kingdom.

Environmentalists opposed the ship's activities, arguing that the
seismic technology could harm sea life including whales, which use sound
waves to communicate.
Received on Wed 02 Mar 2005 01:33:22 PM PST