One of the greatest Antarctic mysteries has been solved. A group of researchers has found what is believed to be the remains of the mythical Ernest Shackleton ship “Endurance” that sank in 1915.
The remains of the ship were found by a research expedition that left South Africa in February, named Endurance 2, at a depth of nearly 2 miles in the Wedell Sea (in the Antarctic Ocean).
The area of the find is about 4 miles south of the position that the ship’s then captain, Frank Worsley, recorded before the crew had to abandon the ship when it became trapped in the ice.
The Chilean Antarctic Institute, said that the remains of the Endurance are in good condition and the discovery “closes one of the greatest Antarctic mysteries linked to the period of heroic exploration of the southern territory,” said Mario Leppe, director of the institute.
Leppe noted that the extraordinary thing about having found “an early 20th-century vessel with this level of preservation, at almost 2 miles and in an environment of high pressure and low temperatures, hard even for bacteria and other forms of life found in that layer.”
“Today’s technological advances make it possible to open doors and push the edges of the impossible,” he added.
The expedition that wrecked the Endurance had set out in 1914 to try to get from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea (both in the Southern Ocean), via the South Pole.
After the wreck of the Endurance, which had been trapped and damaged by ice with its 28 crew members just 100 miles from Antarctica, Shackleton (1874-1922) led his men across the ice in lifeboats to Elephant Island, where the vast majority survived for months by feeding on seals and penguins.
Shackleton knew that no one would come looking for them, so he decided to leave 22 of his men waiting on Elephant Island and set off with the rest of his sailors in a lifeboat for South Georgia in an epic quest for help.
Seventeen days and 800 miles later, they reached a whaling center and, four months later, returned to the island to rescue alive the 22 companions who had been left behind.
With information from EFE
