The Graveyard of the Atlantic: From Shipwrecks to Sanctuaries for Sea Life

A violent storm on New Year’s Eve of 1862 doomed the USS Monitor, a Civil War vessel, and 16 members of its crew to a watery grave off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. For over 100 years, it sat undiscovered 230 feet below sea level, slowly deteriorating in a rusty heap.

But the USS Monitor’s story didn’t end upon its sinking. It is just one of thousands of sunken ships that make up the Graveyard of the Atlantic and provide haunting artificial habitats for sea life. 

Today, scientists and recreational scuba divers that descend the murky waters of the Outer Banks find these shipwrecks teeming with life. Sand tiger sharks, barracudas and greater amberjacks swim through gaping holes and shredded wires of the decaying vessels.

“When you descend down the anchor line to dive a shipwreck, there are always tons of little fish in big bait balls that all turn at the same time and dart back and forth as jacks or other predators swim around them,” says Bethany Wager, a Ph.D. candidate in fisheries, wildlife, and conservation biology. “I feel like I’m in a nature documentary when I see it.”

Wager is a graduate student in the Department of Applied Ecology at NC State University. Mentored by Professor Jeffrey Buckel, she conducts research at NC State’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST). As a seasoned recreational scuba diver, Wager became fascinated with the fish living among the sunken ships and natural reefs. For her doctoral thesis, she is compiling data to compare fish community composition at natural and artificial reefs over the past 50 years to find out what is driving fish community patterns as ocean conditions change.

“It’s like a treasure hunt, trying to find all these data sets,” Wager explains. 

In collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Wager has connected with scientists who contribute their data from past diver surveys, video recordings, archeological expeditions and human-occupied and remote vehicle surveys to better understand biodiversity patterns over time. 

Her study sites dot the coastline from North Carolina to Florida, including natural hard bottom reefs and artificial reefs such as sunken ships, concrete structures and large pipes. Steeped in history, some notable shipwreck sites include:

• City of Atlanta, a casualty of World War II during the 1942 Battle of the Atlantic, with only three of the 46 passengers surviving. 
• U-576, a German World War II submarine that met its end along with all 45 crew members.
• USS Schurz, seized by the U.S. Navy in Hawaii from German forces during World War I, which sunk as the result of a collision with another vessel in 1918 while on patrol.

In the southeast Atlantic Ocean, the cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream collide, resulting in a rich, biodiverse ecosystem. As such, commercial and recreational fisheries are incredibly important for coastal North Carolina communities. Because artificial reefs provide habitats for fish, understanding which fish are benefiting from artificial reefs and the mechanisms behind the resulting fish communities can inform future reef construction for fisheries management. 

As part of her project, Wager had the memorable experience of gathering data from historical records housed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Each floor represents a different medium, with an entire level dedicated to maps, another to videos, and so on. Wager traveled between floors, searching through boxes of information for photos and videos of fish and dive reports from the USS Monitor.  

“I actually got to see and hold pictures from the 1800s of the crew on the ship,” Wager shares, still in awe of the haunted history she held in her hand.

The model Wager uses to analyze the data considers both environmental variables, such as ocean temperature, and biotic variables like species interactions through the inclusion of phylogeny and traits. 

“The model explains how the environment and the fish species interact together to make the community we see in these habitats,” Wager explains. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a shipwreck ecologist, Wager is not afraid of swimming with sharks, acknowledging that divers are visitors in their home. Her biggest fear while diving, however, is murky water. 

“It’s definitely more scary when the visibility isn’t as high. I think of all the things that I can’t see there,” Wager says. “I’ve helped out with some oyster projects where it’s shallow, but you can only see a foot or two in front of you, and it’s a little freaky. It’s like you’re walking around in the dark with a dim flashlight.” 

Shipwreck divers should expect to encounter predators such as sharks. For example, there can be hundreds of sand tiger sharks circling wrecks at certain times of year. The migratory behavior and habitat sites of this critically endangered species is mostly unknown, and researchers aim to learn more through a citizen science photography project called Spot A Shark. Wager incorporates data from Spot A Shark in her thesis research.

“There is evidence that sand sharks come back to the same sites year after year, so we think that these shipwrecks are some type of critical habitat for them,” Wager says. The reason behind this behavior is still unknown. 

Wager hopes that by doing the heavy lifting of compiling 50 years of data, scientists working on future research projects can benefit.

“I worked with NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries when I developed my research proposal to understand the science needs of the sanctuary, so I hope my work can be used for management purposes in the years ahead,” she says.

A haunting goal to be sure.