Researchers have discovered the remarkably well-preserved wreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance in 10,000 feet of icy water, a century after it was swallowed up by Antarctic ice during one of history’s most heroic expeditions.
A team of marine archaeologists, engineers and other scientists used an icebreaker and underwater drones to find the wreck at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, off the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Falkland Maritime Heritage Foundation’s Endurance22 search expedition announced the discovery.
Images and video of the wreck show the three-masted wooden vessel in pristine condition, with the gold letters “Endurance” still attached to the stern and the ship’s lacquered wooden helm still upright, as if the captain might return to steer it. Anytime.
“This is by far the best wooden shipwreck I have ever seen,” said Mensun Bound, head of the study. Bound noted that the wreck was still upright, not above the sea floor, “and in excellent state of preservation.”
The discovery is a “giant find” in “one of the world’s most complex natural environments,” said maritime historian Steven Schwankert, who was not part of the expedition.
The combination of deep and dark waters – sunlight doesn’t penetrate 10,000 feet – low temperatures and sea ice have thwarted past attempts to find the Endurance, but also explain why the wreck is in such good condition today.
The bottom of the Weddell Sea is “a very inhospitable environment for just about anything, especially bacteria, mites and tree-eating worms that would otherwise enjoy chewing on the wreckage of a wooden ship,” Schwankert said.
The Endurance22 expedition set out from Cape Town, South Africa, in early February on a ship capable of breaking 3 feet (1 meter) of ice.
The team, which included more than 100 explorers and crew members, deployed underwater drones that combed the seabed for two weeks in the area where the ship sank in 1915.
“We entered polar history by finding the Endurance and successfully completed the world’s most difficult search for a sunken ship,” said expedition leader John Shears.
British explorer Shackleton never achieved his goal of becoming the first person to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. In fact, he never set foot on the continent.
“Despite the fact that the Endurance was designed to withstand ice floes and pack ice, it could not withstand the impact of heavy sea ice,” says Ann Coates, a maritime historian at the University of Portsmouth.
Shackleton himself noted in his diary the difficulty of this attempt.
“The end came at last around 17:00,” he wrote. “She was doomed, no ship built by human hands could withstand such a strain.”
Before the ship escaped 3,000 meters below the freezing water, Shackleton’s crew loaded food and other supplies into three lifeboats to escape and camp on the ice floes, where, according to Shackleton’s diary, they used sled dogs to transport their provisions.
Shackleton and his captain, Frank Worsley, then sailed 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) through treacherous icy waters in a 22-foot (7-meter) ship to South Georgia Island, a remote whaling community, for help. This successful trip is considered a heroic feat of fortitude, and Shackleton’s decisive response to imminent tragedy is still considered a model for how to deal with difficult circumstances.
“Shackleton was very good at planning and improvising — I have a feeling that today’s polar explorers won’t have the same experience as him,” said Anna Valin, a polar explorer at the University of Gothenburg who has just returned. after a two-month mission to study ice shelves and warm ocean currents in Antarctica.
In Antarctica, “everything is gray or white,” and after just a few weeks, researchers “start to miss the smell of the Earth, walking in the woods, birds chirping, seeing green things,” she said.
An expedition to search for Endurance is being conducted a century after Shackleton’s death in 1922. British historian and broadcaster Dan Snow, who accompanied the researchers, tweeted that Saturday’s discovery of the wreck was “100 years ago since Shackleton was buried.”
The ship is protected as a historical monument under the 60-year-old Antarctic Treaty, which aims to protect the region’s environment.
Investigators filmed the crash site, but found nothing and did not disturb. Instead, the expedition’s organizers say they want to use laser scanning to create a three-dimensional model of the ship that can be used in both traveling exhibitions and permanent museum displays.
“We like to think that Shackleton would be proud of us,” the expedition member wrote on his blog.
___
Follow Christina Larson on Twitter: @larsoncristina
___
The Associated Press Department of Health and Science receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Department of Science Education. AP is solely responsible for all content.