Scientists finally located the 107-year-old shipwreck, deep within the Weddell Sea.
In November 1915, polar explorers watched with gut-wrenching dismay as Antarctica’s Weddell Sea swallowed their ship,. Ice had trapped and crushed the vessel “beyond all hope,” mission leader Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton wrote. Now marooned on floating ice, the 28-man crew drifted from the continent it had hoped to traverse.
With supplies dwindling, the explorers paddled lifeboats to a desolate island and survived on seal and penguin meat. Shackleton and a few mates took one of the small boats,and sailed over 800 miles across treacherous seas to bring back help. The crew’s rescue came nine months post-wreck. All survived. Even, however, remained lost — until now.
Last February, a team of scientists and other experts embarked in an icebreaker vessel to the spot where the original crew reportedEven today, cruising the Weddell Sea is a feat, with some areas of its surface over 90 percent frozen in the warmest months. “The ice there is very old and thick and very strong. That’s the reason why Shackleton actually got trapped,” says geophysicist Lasse Rabenstein, chief scientist for the expedition, which was organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust.
Underwater drones helped the team scan the seafloor for the ship, which was crushed and submerged during an Antarctic voyage in 1915. Using satellite and meteorological data to plot the course, the expedition maneuvered around the ice floes. When they reachedapproximate coordinates, the researchers launched a set of state-of-the-art Sabertooth diving drones. Over three weeks and dozens of dives, these sedan-length submersibles surveyed and filmed the seafloor.
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