Treasure Fever
A) Most visitors come to Cape Canaveral, on the northeast coast of Florida, for the tourist attractions. It's home to the second-busiest cruise ship port in the world and is a gateway to the cosmos. Nearly 1.5 million visitors flock here every year to watch rockets, spacecraft, and satellites blast off into the solar system from Kennedy Space center Visitor Complex. Nearly 64 kilometers of undeveloped beach and 648 square kilometers of protected refuge fan out from the cape's sandy shores.
B) Yet some of Cape Canaveral's most legendary attractions lie unseen, wedged under the sea's surface in mud and sand, for this part of the world has a reputation as a deadly ship trap. Over the centuries, dozens of majestic Old World sailing ships smashed and sank on this irregular stretch of windy Florida coast. They were vessels built for war and commerce, crossing the globe carrying everything from coins to cannons, boxes of silver and gold, chests of jewels and porcelain, and pearls from the Caribbean.
C) Cape Canaveral contains one of the greatest concentrations of colonial shipwrecks in the world. In recent years, advances in radar, diving, detection equipment, computers, and GPS have transformed the hunt. The naked eye might see a pile of rocks, but technology can reveal the precious artifacts(人工制品) that lie hidden on the ocean floor.
D) As technology renders the seabed more accessible, the hunt for treasure-filled ships has drawn a fresh tide of salvors(打捞人员) and their investors— as well as marine archaeologists (考古学家) wanting to bring to light the lost relics. But of late, when salvors have found vessels, their rights have been challenged in court. The big question: who should have control of these treasures?
E) High-stakes fights over shipwrecks pit archaeologists against treasure hunters in a vicious cycle of accusations. Archaeologists regard themselves as protectors of history, and they see salvors as careless destroyers. Salvors feel they do the hard work of searching for ships, only to have them stolen from under them when discovered. This kind of clash inevitably takes place on a grand scale. Aside from the salvors, their investors, and the maritime archaeologists who serve as expert witnesses, the battles sweep in local and international governments and organizations like UNESCO that work to protect under-water heritage. The court cases that ensue stretch on for years. Are finders keepers, or do the ships belong to the countries that made them and sent them sailing centuries ago? Where once salvors and archaeologists worked side by side, now they belong to opposing, and equally contemptuous, tribes.
F) Nearly three million vessels lie wrecked on the Earth's ocean floor— from old canoes to the Titanic— and likely less than one percent have been explored. Some— like an ancient Roman ship found off Antikythera, Greece, dated between 70 and 60 BC and carrying astonishingly sophisticated gears and dials for navigating by the sun— are critical to a new understanding of our past. No wonder there is an eternal stirring among everybody from salvors to scholars to find them.
G) In May 2016,a salvor named Bobby Pritchett, president of global Marine Exploration (GME) in Tampa, Florida, announced that he had discovered scattered remains of a ship buried a kilometer off Cape Canaveral. Over the prior three years, he and his crew had obtained 14 state permits to survey a nearly 260-square- kilometer area off the cape; they worked 250 days a year, backed by investor funds of, he claims, US $4 million. It was hard work. Crew members were up at dawn, dragging sensors from their expedition vessels back and forth, day in and day out, year after year, to detect metal of any kind. Using computer technology, Pritchett and his crew created intricate, color-coded maps marked with the GPS coordinates of thousands of finds, all invisible under a meter of sand.
H) One day in 2015, the magnetometer(磁力计) picked up metal that turned out to be an iron cannon; when the divers blew the sand away, they also discovered a more precious bronze cannon with markings indicating French royalty and, not far off, a famous marble column carved with the coat of arms of France, known from historical paintings. The discovery was cause for celebration. The artifacts indicated the divers had likely found the wreck of La Trinité, a 16th-century French vessel that had been at the center of a bloody battle between France and Spain that changed the fate of the United States of America.
I) And then the legal storm began, with GME and Pritchett pitted against Florida and France. The Sunken Military Craft Act of 2004, a US federal act, protects any vessel that was on a military mission, allowing the originating country to claim their ship even centuries later. In 2018, two long years after Pritchett's discovery, the federal district court ruled in favor of France. For Pritchett, the decision was devastating. Millions of dollars of investor funding and years of labor were lost.
J) But this is far from the first time a salvor has lost all rights to a discovery. In 2012, for instance, Spain won a five-year legal battle against Odyssey Marine Exploration, which had hauled 594,000 gold and silver coins from a Spanish wreck off the coast of Portugal across the Atlantic to the United States. “Treasure hunters can be naive,” says attorney David Concannon, who has had several maritime archaeologists as clients and represented two sides in the battles over the Titanic for 20 years. “Many treasure hunters don't understand they are going to have to fight for their rights against a government that has an endless supply of money for legal battles that treasure hunters are likely to lose.”
K) Putting an inflated price on artifacts rather than viewing them as cultural and historical treasures that transcend any price is what irritates many archaeologists. For the archaeologist, everything in a wreck matters— hair, fabric, a fragment of a newspaper, rat bones— all things speak volumes. Archaeologists don't want artifacts ending up in a private collection instead of taking humanity on a journey of understanding.
L) George Bass is one of the pioneers of under-water archaeology, and a researcher at Texas A&M University.He has testified in court against treasure hunters, but says archaeology is not without its own serious problems. He believes archaeologists need to do a better job themselves instead of routinely criticizing treasure hunters. “Archaeology has a terrible reputation for not publishing enough on its excavations(发掘) and finds, ” he says. Gathering data, unearthing and meticulously preserving and examining finds, verifying identity and origin, piecing together the larger story, and writing and publishing a comprehensive paper or book can take decades. A bit cynically, Bass describes colleagues who never published because they waited so long they became ill or died. Who is more at fault, Bass asks, the professional archacologist who carefully excavates a site and never publishes on it or the treasure hunter who locates a submerged wreck, salvages part, conserves part, and publishes a book on the operation?
M) Pritchett concedes that his find deserves careful excavation and preservation. “I think what I found should go in a museum,” he says. “But I also think I should get paid for what I found.” Indeed, it's a bit of a mystery why governments, archaeologists, and treasure hunters can't work together— and why salvors aren't at least given a substantial finder's fee before the original owner takes possession of the vessel and its artifacts.
36. Exploration of shipwrecks on the sea floor is crucial in updating our understanding of humanity's past.
37. Quite a number of majestic ships sailing from Europe to America were wrecked off the Florida coast over the centuries.
38. Pritchett suffered a heavy loss when a US district court ruled against him.
39. Recently, people who found treasures in shipwrecks have been sued over their rights to own them.
40. Pritchett claims he got support of millions of dollars from investors for his shipwreck exploration.
41. One pioneer marine scientist thinks archaeologists should make greater efforts to publish their findings.
42. With technological advancement in recent years, salvors now can detect the invaluable man-made objects lying buried under the sea.
43. according to a lawyer, many treasure hunters are susceptible to loss because they are unaware they face a financially stronger opponent in court.
44. Salvors of treasures in sunken ships and marine archaeologists are now hostile to each other.
45. Archaeologists want to see artifacts help humans understand their past instead of being sold to private collectors at an outrageous price.
答案解析：
答案解析：
36. 由题干中的关键词 crucial (关键的) 和 understanding of humanity's past (对人类过去的理解) 定位到 F段。F段提到，一些沉船(如古希腊的安提基特拉机械)are critical to a new understanding of our past (对于我们理解过去至关重要)，所以选 F。
37. 由题干中的关键词 majestic ships (雄伟的船只) 和 Florida coast (佛罗里达海岸) 定位到 B段。B段提到，Over the centuries, dozens of majestic Old World sailing ships smashed and sank on this... Florida coast (几个世纪以来，许多雄伟的旧世界帆船在这段佛罗里达海岸失事沉没)，所以选 B。
38. 由题干中的关键词 Pritchett 和 US district court ruled against him (美国地方法院判他败诉) 定位到 I段。I段提到，the federal district court ruled in favor of France. For Pritchett, the decision was devastating (联邦地方法院判法国胜诉。对Pritchett来说，这个裁决是毁灭性的)，所以选 I。
39. 由题干中的关键词 found treasures (发现宝藏) 和 sued over their rights (因所有权被起诉) 定位到 D段。D段提到，when salvors have found vessels, their rights have been challenged in court (当打捞者发现船只时，他们的权利在法庭上受到了挑战)，所以选 D。
40. 由题干中的关键词 Pritchett 和 millions of dollars from investors (来自投资者的数百万美元) 定位到 G段。G段提到，backed by investor funds of, he claims, US $4 million (据他声称，由400万美元的投资资金支持)，所以选 G。
41. 由题干中的关键词 pioneer marine scientist (海洋科学先驱) 和 publish their findings (发表他们的发现) 定位到 L段。L段提到，先驱 George Bass 认为 archaeologists need to do a better job themselves (考古学家自己需要做得更好)，并指出 Archaeology has a terrible reputation for not publishing enough (考古学因发表成果不足而名声不佳)，所以选 L。
42. 由题干中的关键词 technological advancement (技术进步) 和 detect (探测) 定位到 C段。C段提到，advances in radar, diving, detection equipment... have transformed the hunt (雷达、潜水、探测设备的进步已经改变了寻宝方式)，并且 technology can reveal the precious artifacts that lie hidden on the ocean floor (技术能揭示隐藏在海床上的珍贵人工制品)，所以选 C。
43. 由题干中的关键词 lawyer (律师) 和 financially stronger opponent (财力更强的对手) 定位到 J段。J段引用律师 David Concannon 的话说，Many treasure hunters don't understand they are going to have to fight for their rights against a government that has an endless supply of money (许多寻宝者不明白他们将要和一个拥有无限资金支持的政府打官司)，所以选 J。
44. 由题干中的关键词 salvors (打捞者) 和 marine archaeologists (海洋考古学家) 的关系定位到 E段。E段提到，where once salvors and archaeologists worked side by side, now they belong to opposing, and equally contemptuous, tribes (曾经打捞者和考古学家并肩工作，现在他们分属对立且彼此鄙视的阵营)，所以选 E。
45. 由题干中的关键词 artifacts (人工制品) 和 private collectors (私人收藏家) 定位到 K段。K段提到，Archaeologists don't want artifacts ending up in a private collection instead of taking humanity on a journey of understanding (考古学家不希望人工制品最终落入私人收藏家之手，而不是带领人类踏上一段理解之旅)，所以选 K。
