How Much Treasure is Down There? The short answer, Sean Fisher says, is $60 billion.
The United Nations has estimated at least three million shipwrecks are lying across our ocean floors. Some of those wrecks could be of immense historical significance and even contain monetary treasure.
According to ACS, there is approximately 700 trillion dollars worth of gold in seawater. Ultimately, however, it would cost more to extract the gold than it is worth.
Although you might think the rules surrounding 'finders keepers' apply to a sunken treasure ship, this is unfortunately not true. Under salvage law, you must at least try to return the treasures to their rightful owner. As a result, upon discovery, you'd need to notify the government which controlled those waters.
Our oceans contain around 20 million tons of dissolved gold. However, this means there is only about one gram of gold for every 110 million tons of ocean water. Many gold deposits exist deep within the sea floor, and some deposits can often be trapped underneath rock as far down as 35,000 feet.
Ocean wealth valued at US$24 trillion, but sinking fast | WWF.
While 111 years have passed, Titanic researchers continue to find new objects today - whether it be a megalodon shark tooth necklace or 1,200 teapots. Here, MailOnline has compiled a list of five priceless artefacts that went down with the historic liner and are still assumed to be in the wreckage.
The Abandoned Shipwreck Act, passed in 1987 to protect historical shipwrecks from treasure hunters, gives U.S. states ownership title of all shipwrecks found within U.S. territorial waters up to three miles from the coastline.
We do know that gold makes up about four parts per billion of the earth's crust. What we don't know, however, is precisely how much gold is still out there. The WGC estimates that there are 54,000 tonnes of “below-ground gold reserves” waiting to be mined.
About 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date (187,000 metric tons historically produced plus current underground reserves of 57,000 metric tons). Most of that gold has come from just three countries: China, Australia, and South Africa.
Above-ground stocks
The best estimates currently available suggest that around 208,874 tonnes of gold has been mined throughout history, of which around two-thirds has been mined since 1950. And since gold is virtually indestructible, this means that almost all of this metal is still around in one form or another.
The largest monetary treasure haul found was on the wreck code named Black Swan, discovered by Odyssey Marine Exploration in 2007 off of Gibraltar. The salvage team reportedly found 17 tons of coins valued at $500 million; an amount that is both staggering and said to be “unprecedented” in the treasure hunting world.
The World's Most Valuable Shipwreck: The Nuestra Senora de Atocha. On this same day, 35 years ago, the legendary deep-sea explorer Mel Fisher discovered the shipwreck of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. The galleon was sailing from the new world to Spain. It was hit by a hurricane and sank in 1622.
If your find can't be considered a treasure, you are legally required to take it to the police. It will go into their custody and be handled like any other case of lost property. However, if you've got a bonafide treasure trove you're probably in luck.
Most shipwrecks and all old Dutch Shipwrecks, including all artefacts removed from these shipwrecks, are owned by the Commonwealth of Australia under the Commonwealth Navigation Act 2012 and the 1972 Agreement Between the Netherlands and Australia Concerning Old Dutch Shipwrecks.
Two previously unknown shipwrecks have been found near a famous Spanish galleon laden with an estimated $17 billion in gold that was sunk by the British in 1708.
Now it turns out that the Titanic will stay where it is, at least for now, as it is too fragile to be raised from the ocean floor. The acidic salt water, hostile environment and an iron-eating bacterium are consuming the hull of the ship.
Are there skeletons on the Titanic? No intact human bodies or skeletons remain in the Titanic wreckage. The wreck was first located and explored in 1985 and no bodies were visible then, or on any of the other times that it has been visited.
A water-stained, but still legible $5 National Bank Note issued by the First National Bank of Eufaula was among the artifacts recovered 15 years ago beneath more than two miles of icy North Atlantic water surrounding the wreck of Titanic.
One of the biggest challenges of ocean exploration comes down to physics. Dr. Gene Carl Feldman, an oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, explains that the ocean, at great depths, is characterized by zero visibility, extremely cold temperatures, and crushing amounts of pressure.
Who owns the ocean? No one owns the ocean. The seas and oceans are considered to be a 'global commons', which means that they belong to everyone and no one at the same time. However, countries do have the right to claim 'exclusive economic zones' (EEZs) up to 200 nautical miles from their coastlines.
Due to the difficulties surrounding ocean exploration, we've only explored about 5% of all of our world's oceans. To put it into perspective, the oceans make up about 71% of the Earth's surface. This means that about 95% of the world ocean hasn't been explored or isn't fully understood.