Roughly 11 miles off Charleston, a doomed schooner rests on the seafloor, a shipwreck that over the past century quietly created a kaleidoscope of tropical sea life: corals, octopi and sponges. For the first time, a College of Charleston marine biologist captured this hidden world in a single, stunning image.

The scientist, Phil Dustan, said he and local diver Tom Robinson spent a day several years ago swimming over the shipwreck of the Frederick W. Day, snapping photographs one second at a time. Then he spent months using software to stitch the images together.

The result is an unusual overhead view of the schooner’s cargo — bags of cement packed tight in the hull and together forming the shape of a giant cob of corn.

“It’s really the only place locally where I dive,” Dustan said of

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