MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – A team of scuba divers from the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum has explored three underwater shipwrecks in the Hudson River that the lead diver describes as significant archaeological finds.

Two of the three wrecks, a canal boat and a sloop found in the river in Nyack, within sight of the Tappan Zee Bridge, were carrying cargo. The third vessel, possibly a schooner, appeared to have been abandoned, said Maritime Museum Director Art Cohn.

“It’s an extraordinary selection of North American shipwrecks that had not previously been studied,” said Cohn, who has charted and explored shipwrecks on Lake Champlain for the past 30 years.

All three Hudson River wrecks date to the 19th century, he said.

The wrecks were spotted by a sonar scan of the river between New York City and the Albany region that was conducted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. That survey was meant to map fish habitat, said Cohn.

“They reached out to us with the idea that we would try to see if our tried and true techniques of measurement could be applied to these shipwrecks in these conditions,” Cohn said. “It worked better than any of us could hope. It opened up a body of objects and information that has previously not been accessible.”

The current on the river is fast and the water is brackish, an environment that makes it more difficult for such wrecks to survive.

Cohn said the wrecks were relatively well preserved because they were mostly buried in the mud.

“Basically we’re taking the information we gather from the boats and drafting them out, creating scale drawings. We are simultaneously doing archival research to find out more about them.”

The Hudson River project is being spearheaded by the Marine Sciences Research Center of Stony Brook University on Long Island. It was sponsored by the New York State DEC and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Cohn said many of the Hudson River wrecks have parallels to those in Lake Champlain. “In the end there are probably several hundred sites that span several hundred years of human history. It’s really enormous,” Cohn said.

Cohn and two other divers from the Ferrisburgh-based Maritime Museum spent a week in October exploring the wrecks.

“We were very fortunate in having up to 6 inches of visibility,” Cohn said. “It was very much like working in a darkened tunnel all the time.”

The two vessels with cargo were carrying coal, Cohn said.

Cohn and the Maritime Museum have spent years studying underwater wrecks in Lake Champlain. A number of those lake wrecks are now part of an underwater preserve that is open to recreational scuba divers.

Given the inhospitable diving conditions and heavy commercial traffic on the Hudson it’s unlikely the wrecks will ever be accessible to recreational divers, Cohn said.

Cohn said museum officials would be working with the sponsoring agencies to try to decide what is to be done with the Hudson River wrecks, both those that were explored this year, and the other wrecks that have not been explored.

As both the Champlain Valley and the Hudson River area, which were discovered by European explorers in 1609, prepare to celebrate their 400th anniversaries discoveries such as the wrecks can be used to highlight the regions’ history.

“What’s the process by which we unlock the secrets of these sites? How do we manage the information and share it with the public in a logical and positive way?” Cohn said.