London. Scientists say they have found the remains of the Endurance, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship, sunk under the ice more than a century ago.
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust says the ship is 10,000 feet below the surface of the Weddell Sea, about 4 miles south of the location recorded in 2015 by its captain, Frank Worsley.
An expedition left South Africa last month in search of the ship, which sank crushed by ice in November 2015.
Mensun Bound, director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition, said the footage reveals a ship in remarkably good condition.
“This is by far the best-maintained wooden shipwreck I have ever seen,” he said. “It is vertical, well separated from the bottom of the sea, intact, in an extraordinary state of conservation. You can even see ‘Endurance’ at the stern, directly below the taffrail.”
Shackleton’s attempt in 1914-1916 to be the first to cross Antarctica through the South Pole failed, he never landed on the continent. But he succeeded in seeking help from a whaling station in the South Atlantic and rescuing his men, which is considered a heroic feat. They all survived and were rescued months later.
The expedition took place 100 years after Shackleton’s death in 1922.
British historian and broadcaster Dan Snow, who accompanied the expedition, tweeted that the Endurance was found on Saturday, “exactly 100 years after Shackleton’s burial.”
He said they would film the remains, but not touch them.
“Nothing was touched from the wreck,” he said. “Nothing was removed. It was studied with the latest tools and its position was confirmed. It is protected by the Antarctic Treaty. We didn’t want to tamper with it either.”
Scientists have found the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship ‘Endurance’, 107 years after it sank during an ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole. Via GraphicNews.
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