• AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    11 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Archeologists, historians and divers are trying to digitally capture more than 1,000 shipwrecks at the bottom of the Great Lakes before they become unrecognizable after a combination of invasive mussels and climate change have accelerated their deterioration at an alarming rate.

    Since their arrival in the 1980s, the thumbnail-sized mollusks have transformed the Great Lakes — driving local mussels to the brink of extinction, turning once-murky turquoise waters crystal clear while at the same time blanketing almost everything — from piers to power plants — in a jagged carpet of densely packed shells.

    Over his 30-year diving career, Martin, also the president of the non-profit group Save Ontario Shipwrecks, said the invasive mussels have totally transformed the underwater world.

    Today, the water is so clear that lights are often no longer needed, and while divers can now easily see the form of shipwrecks, they’re encrusted in living layers of tens of thousands of invasive shellfish.

    It’s why Meryman, a retired computer programmer, has devoted much of his golden years to documenting shipwrecks before they disappear using a 3D scanning technology called photogammetry, which uses a series of images to form a 3D digital model.

    Divers, historians and archeologists from across the continent have worked with Meryman over the years to help put those models on his 3Dshipwrecks website, where you can browse a catalogue of 160 shipwrecks online to explore wrecks, like the Katie Eccles, which sank in Lake Ontario in 1922, in minute detail.


    The original article contains 1,036 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!