More than 13,500 silver and gold coins, ingots, nuggets, and jewellery have been recovered by Odyssey Marine Exploration from a shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina, unsealed court documents have revealed.

Taken from the wreck of the SS Central America, now located 7,300 feet underwater, the find could represent “tens of millions of dollars” in treasure from the Californian Gold-Rush era, said Dr David Saul, former Premier and part-owner of the Tampa, Florida-based exploration company. Such is the extent of gold and silver that was being carried with the SS Central America, its loss helped cause the first global financial crisis when a hurricane sank the ship in September 1857.

An inventory of the findings was released this week after a US Federal Judge in Virginia ruled that the rights to salvage the treasure belonged to a group of Ohio investors for whom Odyssey Marine is conducting the salvage operation.

The wreck of the SS Central America — and the gold that it carried — is no secret. Discovered in 1988 by Tommy Thompson, now a wanted fugitive, a group of Ohio investors funded an initial salvage operation, led by Mr Thompson, that turned up about $50 million in gold and silver.

But immediately following the salvage operation, which focused on the treasure contained in the ship, Mr Thompson entered into a decades-long court battle over who had the rights to treasure. The Ohio investors who funded the expedition never saw a penny, while Mr Thompson has not been seen since failing to show up for several court hearings in 2012. A warrant is still outstanding for his arrest.

In May, Odyssey’s first reconnaissance dive at the sight showed everything was just as Tommy Thompson left it in 1991.

The new salvage operation, led by a court-appointed receiver for the jilted group of Ohio investors, was able to go ahead after the group gained legal approval to conduct a recovery effort and hopefully recoup the sunken funds they invested in the first operation.

While the majority of gold contained in the ship has gone, said Dr Saul, Odyssey has discovered an equally impressive amount of treasure in the debris field surrounding the wreck.

“Twenty years ago [the SS Central America] was worked and all the gold was supposed to have been found,” said Dr Saul.

But in searching the areas surrounding the ship, they discovered a vast amount of treasure was also lost when crews doffed their pockets of gold so they could abandon ship unencumbered. Until this week the details of their findings had been held in sealed court documents.

“A lot of miners and individuals were literally carrying their gold with them when they jumped into the ocean,” said Dr Saul. “They knew what gravity was, and so they divest themselves of the gold.”

After being unsealed late on Wednesday night, the inventory of Odyssey’s findings showed that 43 solid gold bars, 1,300 $20 double-eagle gold coins, and thousands more gold and silver coins had been recovered.

“We are absolutely certain that we have found tens of millions in gold and silver coins, and that is just a small amount of what is left,” said Dr Saul.

Launched in 1853 as the SS George Law, the SS Central America was an 85-metre, three-masted steam ship that routinely serviced the Atlantic leg of the Panama route between New York and San Francisco. While on her way to deliver a large consignment of gold ingots and newly minted $20 double-eagle American coins to New York, the SS Central America sank on September 12, 1857, after encountering a hurricane some 160 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

The loss of the gold was so vast it shook economic confidence across the globe, contributing to the Panic of 1857.