Scientists say they've discovered the sunken wreck of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance, greater than a century after it was misplaced to the Antarctic ice.
The Falklands Maritime Heritage Belief says the vessel lies 3,000 metres beneath the floor of the Weddell Sea, about 6.4 kilometres south of the placement recorded in 1915 by its captain, Frank Worsley.
An expedition set off from South Africa final month to seek for the ship, which was crushed by ice and sank in November 1915.
Mensun Sure, director of exploration for the Endurance22 expedition, mentioned footage revealed the ship to be in remarkably good situation.
"That is by far the best wood shipwreck I've ever seen," he mentioned. "It's upright, properly proud (clear) of the seabed, intact, and in a superb state of preservation. You may even see 'Endurance' arced throughout the strict, immediately beneath the taffrail."
Shackleton's 1914-16 try and grow to be the primary particular person to cross Antarctica by way of the South Pole failed — he by no means set foot on the continent. However his profitable bid to succeed in assist at a distant South Atlantic whaling station and rescue his males is taken into account a heroic feat of endurance. All the boys survived and have been rescued many months later.
The expedition to search out the ship comes 100 years after Shackleton's demise in 1922.
British historian and broadcaster Dan Snow, who accompanied the expedition, tweeted that Endurance was discovered on Saturday, "100 years to the day since Shackleton was buried."
He mentioned the wreck had been filmed, however would not be touched.
"Nothing was touched on the wreck," he mentioned.
"Nothing retrieved. It was surveyed utilizing the most recent instruments and its place confirmed. It's protected by the Antarctic Treaty. Nor did we want to tamper with it."
Sharing extra photographs and movies from behind the scenes of the invention on social media, Snow mentioned the wreck was "in an astonishing state of preservation".
"The Antarctic seabed doesn't have any wooden consuming micro organisms, the water has the readability of distilled water," he wrote.
"We have been in a position to movie the wreck in tremendous excessive definition. The outcomes are magical"