The Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship was found 3,000 meters deep in the Wedell Sea, Antarcticaafter sinking more than a century ago.
The research expedition announced this Wednesday (09.03.2022) that it had images of the wooden wreck. The remains of the “Endurance” were found six kilometers from the place where she sank in 1915.
“One hundred years after Shackleton’s death, the Endurance was found at a depth of 3,008 meters in the Wedell Sea (in the Southern Ocean),” the expedition, dubbed Endurance22, said in a statement.
The remains of the mythical ship were found, according to the text, “within the search area defined by the expedition team prior to their departure from Cape Town” (south-west South Africa), in an area about 4 miles south of the position that the then captain of the ship, Frank Worsley, registered before the crew had to abandon it, when it was trapped in the ice.
“The Endurance22 expedition has achieved its goal. We have made polar history with the discovery of the Endurance and successfully completed the search for the world’s most challenging shipwreck,” expedition leader John Shears said in the statement.
“Fantastic state of conservation”
“It stands tall, very proud on the seabed, intact, in a fantastic state of preservation,” said Mensun Bound, director of the mission organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust. “You can even read her name ‘Endurance’ on a bow at the stern,” he added.
The ship’s rudder remains intact. There is also equipment stacked against the rail, as if the crew had just abandoned ship. One of the masts is broken, but the structure, although damaged, is still standing.
The wreck is protected as a Historic Site and Monument under the Antarctic Treaty, the search project stressed in its statement, so investigators made sure that while the wreck was being surveyed and filmed it was not “touched or disturbed in any way.” .
The first crossing of the Antarctic continent
In late 1914, the “Endurance” sailed from South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic in an attempt by Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition to make the first crossing of the Antarctic continent.
At that time, at the beginning of the 20th century, the conquest of the poles inspired many explorers, including Ernest Shackleton, who wanted to become the first man to cross Antarctica from end to end, from the Weddell Sea to the Antarctic Sea. by Ross.
Shackleton’s Historic Voyage
The adventure lasted two years and ended in failure, but Shackleton’s epic journey went down in history. After a few months at sea, the pack ice began to cause problems because the ice was denser than expected. In January 1915, the ship became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea near the Larsen Ice Shelf.
The three-masted, 44-meter schooner was blocked for months, gradually breaking apart and eventually sinking 3,000 meters deep.
Knowing that no one would come to the rescue, Ernest Shackleton embarked on a daring journey in search of help. He left in a boat from the “Endurance” with the minimum of equipment and food rations to the inhospitable and frigid Elephant Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula.
He managed to raise the alarm and the explorer was able to return a few months later to rescue the rest of the crew. All 28 members of the expedition survived. Its history became legendary due to the survival conditions of the crew, who spent months on the ice.
“The worst part of the worst sea in the world”
The research expedition, called Endurance22, used state-of-the-art technology, including two underwater drones, to explore the area described by Shackleton himself as “the worst part of the worst sea in the world”.
“This is the most complex underwater project ever undertaken,” said Nico Vincent, a member of the mission. Scientists also studied the effects of climate change.
Stefanie Arndt, a researcher at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, said on Twitter that she had collected “an incredible number” of 630 ice and snow samples.
The crew will now embark on an 11-day voyage back to Cape Town.
Shackleton is one of the great names in the history of Antarctic exploration, along with the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 became the first man to reach the South Pole, and the British Robert Falcon Scott. He died in January 1922. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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