Explorer Shackleton’s lost ship as never seen before

[oldbrownhat]

BBC article & short video here.

After more than 100 years hidden in the icy waters of Antarctica, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance has been revealed in extraordinary 3D detail.

For the first time we can see the vessel, which sank in 1915 and lies 3,000m down at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, as if the murky water has been drained away.

The digital scan, which is made from 25,000 high resolution images, was captured when the ship was found in 2022...

In the picture below you can see the plates that the crew used for daily meals, left scattered across the deck.

In the next picture there's a single boot that might have belonged to Frank Wild, Shackleton's second-in-command.

Perhaps most extraordinary of all is a flare gun that's referenced in the journals the crew kept.

The flare gun was fired by Frank Hurley, the expedition's photographer, as the ship that had been the crew's home was lost to the ice.

"Hurley gets this flare gun, and he fires the flare gun into the air with a massive detonator as a tribute to the ship," explains Dr John Shears who led the expedition that found Endurance.

"And then in the diary, he talks about putting it down on the deck. And there we are. We come back over 100 years later, and there's that flare gun, incredible."

 

[mtgianni]

It is amazing how things survive in that frigid water.
Those old Antarctic explorers were really a class unto themselves. Reading about them, especially Shackleton's' group, is fascinating especially what they did when they returned. Spend a little time reading about Tom Crean, Worsley and Hurley and you see how they just didn't really fit in when they tried city life. They wanted to be on the edge. It makes you appreciate the leadership roles that were required.
Then you have Douglas Mawson, who realized while he was returning from an expedition that the soles of his feet had become separated from his body. He wrapped them with socks and kept walking as the alternative was to quit and die. He was the only one out of three who survived their attempt to the pole. He arrived at Antarctic Station only to find that the last boat out had left yesterday. He spent another winter on the ice.

 

[Autonomous]

Wasn't it Mawson's book that was banned from publication for a while by embarrassed family members? Bizarre. The dog livers were poisoning them IIRC.

 

[Onomea]

Here's another recent discovery concerning ill-fated explorers:

"A new DNA analysis has identified the remains of Captain James Fitzjames, a Royal Navy officer who disappeared on a doomed Northwest Passage expedition in Canada more than 175 years ago.

Fitzjames was part of an expedition led by Sir John Franklin that set out in 1845 from England with 129 men on two ships: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The expedition aimed to navigate the Northwest Passage, an Arctic ship route that links the Atlantic with the Pacific. But both ships became trapped in ice, and the entire crew died...."

Cannibalized Captain of Doomed Arctic Expedition Identified by DNA Analysis | Scientific American

 

[oldbrownhat]

It is amazing how things survive in that frigid water.
Those old Antarctic explorers were really a class unto themselves...

I just recalled Stan Rogers song "The Northwest Passage"

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI[/ame]

Years ago I recorded a CD for the Vancouver BC men's choir, Chor Leoni, who did an excellent arrangement of it by one of their members, Ron Smail. Too long ago to be on YooToob, though.

@Onomea: Yes, I read that chilling story about the expedition

 

[Onomea]

Re the long sought Northwest Passage, I've read that due to climate change, it may become a reality which would be a boon to global shipping.

 

[oldbrownhat]

Re the long sought Northwest Passage, I've read that due to climate change, it may become a reality which would be a boon to global shipping.

Yup. Franklin & the others were just a century or so too early! At some point you'll be able to navigate the NW Passage in a kayak (solar powered, of course)

The other side of the coin is the melting ice levels up there are also providing another national security challenge for us. (Well, in reality, for you folks south of 49, as we'd have trouble defending our northern borders from a concerted attack from raccoons - as per the recent raccoon thread - with what's left of our military.)

 

[Rudi]

Amazing what the cold water preserved!