Nuestra Señora de Atocha
shipwreck cargo FOUND fame 4/5
Spanish galleon sunk in a 1622 hurricane off the Florida Keys as almirante of the Tierra Firme fleet; Mel Fisher's team found the main wreck site in 1985 after a 16-year archive-guided search.
Resolved (1985-07-20): Main cultural deposit ("the motherlode") located by Mel Fisher's Treasure Salvors on 20 July 1985 after a 16-year search near the Marquesas Keys.
Scorecard
Exists
VERY-LIKELY
band 5/5 · raw +6.26
- +2.35 · On 20 July 1985 Treasure Salvors divers located the Atocha's main cultural…
- +1.90 · The fleet's registro (cargo manifest), preserved in the Archivo General de…
- +1.00 · class_prior
Findable now
PLAUSIBLY-FINDABLE
band 4/5 · raw +3.80
- +2.00 · location_term
- +1.44 · Eugene Lyon's archival research in the Archivo General de Indias showed the 1622…
- +0.71 · Treasure Salvors found silver bars whose weights and tally numbers matched the…
Findable (frontier)
PLAUSIBLY-FINDABLE
band 4/5 · raw +3.80
- +2.00 · location_term
- +1.44 · Eugene Lyon's archival research in the Archivo General de Indias showed the 1622…
- +0.71 · Treasure Salvors found silver bars whose weights and tally numbers matched the…
Location hypotheses
The interactive map (Leaflet + OpenStreetMap tiles) is the one part of this page that needs a network connection; the hypothesis list below is the offline-readable source of truth.
| Hypothesis | Coords | Radius | Prior | Posterior | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marquesas Keys (Cayos del Marqués) | 24.550, -82.130 | 15 km | 0.60 | — | Supported by Lyon's 1970 archival reading of the salvage records. |
| Matecumbe Keys | 24.860, -80.730 | 30 km | 0.25 | — | The pre-1970 consensus site, from a loose reading of 'Matecumbe' in colonial accounts. |
What would it take?
No emerging or speculative technique changes the picture yet — the frontier findability band (PLAUSIBLY-FINDABLE) equals the current band. A breakthrough here would need a genuinely new capability, not just a maturing one.
Evidence ledger (6 verified facts)
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The galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha sank in a hurricane on 6 September 1622 off the Florida Keys while sailing as almirante of the Tierra Firme treasure fleet; only five of some 265 aboard survived.known by 1622-10-01 · diagnosticity high · confidence 0.98
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Spanish salvors under Francisco Núñez Melián recovered much of the sister ship Santa Margarita's cargo in the 1620s but almost nothing from the Atocha, whose upper works a second storm had swept away.known by 1630-01-01 · diagnosticity medium · confidence 0.90↳ Eugene Lyon, The Search for the Atocha (Harper & Row, 1979) academic
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The fleet's registro (cargo manifest), preserved in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, records roughly 24 tonnes of silver, 161 gold pieces, and over 24,000 pearls loaded aboard the Atocha.known by 1970-01-01 · diagnosticity high · confidence 0.95↳ Archivo General de Indias, 1622 Tierra Firme fleet registro primary
“cargo registered to the Nuestra Señora de Atocha”
↳ Eugene Lyon, The Search for the Atocha (Harper & Row, 1979) academic -
Eugene Lyon's archival research in the Archivo General de Indias showed the 1622 wrecks lay near the Marquesas Keys ("Cayos del Marqués"), not the Matecumbe Keys where modern searchers had concentrated.known by 1970-06-01 · diagnosticity high · confidence 0.90↳ Eugene Lyon, The Search for the Atocha (Harper & Row, 1979) academic↳ Eugene Lyon, 'The Trouble with Treasure', National Geographic, June 1976 journalistic
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Treasure Salvors found silver bars whose weights and tally numbers matched the Atocha's manifest in 1973, and bronze cannon bearing Atocha markings in 1975 — forensic confirmation the wreck scatter was the Atocha's.known by 1975-07-31 · diagnosticity high · confidence 0.95↳ Wikipedia: Nuestra Señora de Atocha journalistic
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On 20 July 1985 Treasure Salvors divers located the Atocha's main cultural deposit — a reef of silver ingots, coins, gold, and emeralds valued around $400 million — ending the 16-year search.known by 1985-07-21 · diagnosticity high · confidence 0.98↳ Wikipedia: Nuestra Señora de Atocha journalistic↳ R. Duncan Mathewson III, Treasure of the Atocha (Pisces Books, 1986) academic
Search history (negative evidence)
| Years | Technique | Coverage | Detection | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1622–1626 | — | 20% | 30% | null_result | Recovered much of the Santa Margarita; the Atocha's hull had scattered and eluded grappling. |
| 1969–1984 | — | 50% | 50% | partial | Magnetometer grid search; scattered finds (1973 silver bars, 1975 cannon) but not the main pile. |
| 1985 | — | 70% | 60% | found | Motherlode located 20 July 1985. |