The relics are buried under sand and await excavation next year. Their location came to light during scans of the seabed with sonar and other remote sensing devices. A joint effort of the Point Reyes National Seashore, the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the California State Lands Commission, Berkeley participants include Allan and Professor of Anthropology Kent Lightfoot. Allan is also director of the Institute for Western Maritime Archaeology, affiliated with the campus's Archaeological Research Facility. The sinking of the San Agustin was a fateful moment for California.
Many historians believe it changed the course of history.
Because of the shipwreck, he failed to make the find and the bay remained unknown for almost 200 years. His crew was assembling a launch to explore the region when a squall doomed the mother ship, harbored in Drakes Bay. Thus the discovery of the Golden Gate was left to Gaspar de Portola, whose overland party finally stumbled on San Francisco Bay while in search of Monterey Bay in 1769. The mood of the day was for gold and silver. California might have been opened to thousands of Spanish gold seekers and settlers at the end of the sixteenth century.