Show of shipwrecked treasures raises scientists’ ire

At 40m or less, wrecks can be explored using recreational scuba gear. Every effort should be made to catalog these wrecks and remove all items of any interest before recreational divers are allowed to visit the site.

Down to about 200m, tech diving equipment can still be used, but the danger and the skill level needed to salvage goes up. Given the likelihood that the wreck will be unexplored by any other than professional salvagers, the archeological rigor with which the site is treated should go down. Proper archeological treatment of the site will mean more dives and an increased chance that someone dies. And the equipment is quite a bit more expensive. It's only natural that they'd limit themselves to the more profitable salvage and leave what is essentially charitable salvage to any organization that can solicit enough donations to do their own work.

Below 200m, you're talking submersibles and robots and the cost to salvage goes way up. Expecting archeological rigor at those depths likely means that most wrecks will be completely unexplored. I'd rather see the valuable stuff salvaged and put in museums than just left on the ocean floor.

But perhaps I'm being too myopic to my own interests and those of other scuba divers.

I believe the scientist's point is that commercial 'salvaging' is little more than looting, especially when it's done in a way that destroys the site.