Researchers find historic, 19th-century wooden-hulled vessel buried in ocean floor
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© Okeanos Explorer programRemnants of the hull of a 19th-century wooden ship are shown in this handout photo. Explorers aboard the Okeanos Explorer sent robots to photograph the historic artifacts nestled in the sea floor.
Ocean researchers stumbled across a historic shipwreck entombed in over 4,000 feet of water during an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists aboard the Okeanos Explorer reportedly discovered the approximately 200-year-old, wooden-hulled ship while on a 56-day excursion in a relatively unexplored area 200 miles off the Gulf coast that ended April 29.

A rare glimpse of the 19th-century ocean artifact wasn't all that was found, however, the shipwreck was reportedly laden with additional seafaring artifacts including anchors, navigational instruments, glass bottles, ceramic plates, cannons and boxes of muskets.

"Citizen explorers" were also able to participate in the robot-led excursion via Internet live stream, NOAA said on its website.

The shipwreck site was reportedly first discovered via sonar in 2011 during an oil and gas survey conducted for Shell Oil Company, according to reports.

Historic activity in the Gulf of Mexico that may have been a source of the wrecked ship include battles during the War of 1812, events leading to the Texas Revolution and the Mexican-American War, according to a Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) researcher, Jack Irion.