Treasure Hunters Find 55-Pound Copper Ingot Off Florida Keys

Captain Drake Nicholas felt his metal detector give off a faint signal while searching the Nuestra Señora de Atocha shipwreck site 35 miles west of Key West. What he pulled from the mud turned out to be a 55-pound copper ingot worth up to $25,000, hidden beneath centuries of ocean sediment.

The Spanish treasure galleon sank in a hurricane in 1622 while carrying silver, gold, and emeralds back to Spain. Legendary treasure hunter Mel Fisher spent years searching for the Atocha before discovering its main cargo deposit in 1985, but the site keeps revealing new treasures decades later.

Nicholas thought he'd found a cannon at first because of the ingot's rounded shape and bronze coloring. "Faint hits are always the most exciting because they lead to stuff very deep in the mud," he told reporters after the August discovery.

In the 1600s, copper was precious enough that only royalty could stockpile it. The Spanish Empire needed the metal to make bronze cannons, the backbone of their naval power.

Workers made these ingots by digging holes in sand and pouring molten copper directly into them. The crude bars, full of impurities and barely marked, were sent across the Atlantic to fuel Spain's military might.

The Ripple Effect

Nicholas believes he's following a trail that could lead to something bigger. New technology now lets his crew detect targets deeper in the dense mud than ever before, reaching layers that have remained untouched for 400 years.

"Right now, I have 19 targets that are very interesting, very high-value targets that I'm going out after next," Nicholas said. The crew recently found a 22.5-pound silver bar at the same site, still remarkably intact despite heavy marine growth.

The size and concentration of recent finds suggest the team may be closing in on a larger treasure deposit. Each discovery maps out the scatter pattern from that fateful hurricane four centuries ago, helping modern explorers piece together where the ship's cargo finally came to rest.

Four hundred years after the Atocha went down, its story continues to unfold one spectacular find at a time.