Track Marine Archaeologists Seeking Icy Antarctic Seas for Ernest Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’

A group aboard a modern icebreaker will check the site with state-of-the-art underwater drones in hopes of finding the historic vessel.

Marine archaeologists are looking for a historic century-old shipwreck, Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, in some of the most dangerous seas on earth, reports Henry Fountain of the New York Times.

Endurance is “one of the most popular shipwrecks, maybe on par with the Titanic,” states Fountain. “It is a relic of the brave age of Antarctic expedition when adventurers took on elaborate, risky, and hugely preferred explorations to the continent and the pole.”.

On August 8, 1914, Shackleton left Buenos Aires for Vahsel Bay in the Weddell Sea on a three-year endeavor referred to as the Imperial Trans-Antarctica Expedition in an attempt to be the first to cross the ice-bound continent from sea to sea.

Ernest Shackleton’s journey

A disaster struck on January 18, 1915, when Shackleton’s 144-foot vessel was captured in the moving pack ice in the Weddell Sea. Ten months after, the ship sank. Shackleton’s exploration would fail, but when he saved his staff of 27 and returned to Britain, he was hailed as a hero.

Shackleton remains celebrated today in “books, films and even business school courses, where the expedition is considered a case research study in successful leadership,” per the New York Times.

Beginning this month, the 64-member expedition team, supported by a staff of 46, boarded the icebreaker Agulhas II and left from Cape Town, South Africa, for the Weddell Sea, per a statement on the exploration’s web page, where a live tracker enables the public to observe the ship’s location and live activities of the exploration can be transmitted.

Endurance22

The finding operation, called Endurance22, prepares to break through pack ice and navigate the zone of the Antarctic Ocean that Shackleton named “the worst section of the worst sea on the planet.”.

The ocean there is filled with strong currents, part of the thermohaline circulation system, which assists control global temperatures. “It is the most inaccessible wreck ever,” Mensun Bound, marine archaeologist and exploration director, states to the New York Times. “Which makes this the biggest wreck hunt of all time.”.

” Believe me, it is quite daunting,” Bound tells Jonathan Amos of BBC News. “The pack ice in the Weddell Sea is continuously in motion in a clockwise direction. It is opening; it is clenching and unclenching. It is a really vicious, lethal environment that we are entering.”.

Utilizing a modern icebreaker and high-tech underwater drones, the worldwide group will attempt to find the Endurance, utilizing the coordinates recorded by the ship’s captain in his journal. The wooden sailing and steam vessel sank at 10,000 feet.

After the Endurance sank on November 21, 1915, Shackleton’s 28-member crew trekked over sea ice and traveled in the ship’s lifeboats to Elephant Island, a desolate atoll off the coast of Antarctica. Without ways of communicating with the outside world, Shackleton and numerous exploration members then navigated one of the boats to a whaling station on South Georgia Island, pproximately800 nautical miles, to alarm whalers of their dilemma.

The rescue missions

Three rescue missions failed. However, in 1916 the Elephant Island survivors were finally rescued. Historian Caroline Alexander, who authored the book, The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, told CBS News that the rescue mission is the “biggest survival story” of the 20th century.

Members of Endurance22 expect to invest up to 45 days over the coming weeks looking for the sunken ship utilizing two underwater drones with 3D scanners, records Mary Kay Linge of the New York Post. If they locate the Endurance, they will take photos and videos without disrupting the shipwreck, which is contemplated as a historical monument under the terms of a 1959 treaty.

Shackleton’s legacy

The group’s website describes how marine archaeologists will utilize a new type of underwater search vehicle, named a SAAB Sabertooth, to locate and survey the vessel. These modern drones use the most effective characteristics of autonomous undersea and remote operating vehicles and send digital signs through a fiberoptic cable to the surface in real-time.

The exploration, which amounted to $10 million, is being funded by an unknown donor, according to the New York Times. It is organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, a charity promoting public education of maritime heritage.

” This journey is composed of polar explorers, scientists, educators, and filmmakers … [who] will give birth to one of the terrific stories of a polar expedition,” states the trust’s chair Donald Lamont in a declaration.

This is not the first time an expedition has tried to locate the Endurance. In 2019, another team, also utilizing the research ship SA Agulhas II, unsuccessfully looked for the ship at its last recorded position utilizing autonomous underwater vehicles, according to a 2019 Guardian article.

” We hope we can do justice to this spectacular phase in the polar expedition by capturing pictures of Shackleton’s famous Endurance to show to the globe,” says Bound per the declaration.

Read the original article on Smithsonian.

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