MORE RESEARCH ON PHOENICIAN HARBORS: A few months ago I noted this story on core samples taken at the harbor of Tyre. Now there's more:

Geoscience rediscovers Phoenicia's buried harbors
Space and Earth science : January 05, 2006 (Physorg.com)

The exact locations of Tyre and Sidon's ancient harbors, Phoenicia's two most important city-states, have attracted scholarly interest and debate for many centuries. New research reveals that the ancient basins lie buried beneath the medieval and modern city centers.

A network of sediment cores have been sunk into the cities' coastal deposits and studied using high-resolution geoscience techniques to elucidate how, where, and when Tyre and Sidon's harbors evolved since their Bronze Age foundations. In effect, ancient port basins are rich geological archives replete with information on human impacts, occupation histories, Holocene coastal evolution, and natural catastrophes.

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(Via Archaeologica News.)

UPDATE: There's an article in Nature as well. (Via Rogue Classicism and the revived Mirabilis blog -- welcome back Christine!)