• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.333-341
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• 2014

Since distribution and preservation of cultural artifacts in the submarine sediments are directly affected by not only ocean currents and tides, but also their composition, it is very important to investigate geological characteristics of sediments and ocean-sediment interactions for maritime archaeological survey. Physical properties of submarine sediments, which are collected by grab sampler and vibro-corer, are analyzed in order to investigate effects of submarine environment on development of maritime archaeological survey techniques. Result of physical property analysis showed that bulk density, shear strength, and magnetic susceptibility increase with depth, while water contents and porosity decrease with depth. Since the magnetic susceptibility of bedrock is about 40 times that of submarine sediments, it might impact greatly on the response of magnetic survey. Physical properties of sediments with depth and sediment classification by Folk's ternary diagram indicate that submarine sediment mainly consists of silt, and cultural artifacts can not penetrate no deeper than 1.5 m in sediments.