UW News

July 6, 2011

Lost and Found Films: Research at sea

UW News

A young man pulls some levers and a large circular piece of equipment hovers over the deck of a ship. Then the equipment is lowered into the water with a splash. Thats the opening of this weeks Lost and Found Film, titled Cobb Seamount.  Shot in about 1969, the film depicts some sort of research at sea, but what?

This is one of hundreds of reels of film that Hannah Palin, film archives specialist with UW Libraries Special Collections, is trying to identify for archiving purposes. She has film clips from the late 1940s through the 1970s — some from research projects, some from campus events and some from commercial films or original productions.

Can you help Palin figure out whats going on in these forgotten campus clips?

This weeks film includes, in addition to the equipment being placed into the water, some divers jumping in and some underwater sequences as they do their work. What Palin would like to know:

  • What is the large piece of equipment that gets launched overboard?
  • What are the divers looking for?
    What kind of samples are they collecting?
  • How is this 1969 expedition different from the other expeditions (1968, the late 1970s, and 1992)?

If you can answer these questions or provide any other information about the film, please write your comment below.  When UW Today presented earlier films from Special Collections, readers provided important information, and Palin hopes shell get a similar response now.

Last week’s Lost and Found Film was “Campus Color, Circa 1940-1948.”

 

 

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