Endurance22 Mission Finds Shackleton's Endurance Wreck: Proof of Preservation?

[bob012345]

We need a little good news these days so here is some. The Endurance22 mission found and documented the wreck of Shackleton's Endurance which was crushed by pack ice and sank in 1915 in the Weddell Sea. The ship is basically intact and upright and located over 3km deep. If there are any doubters, here is the proof.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/...te=1&user_id=8613815b12767bea258c4c4362fd541d

 

[bob012345]

FYI, here is the website of the Endurance22 exploration mission;

https://endurance22.org/

 

[Isopod]

I find the state of preservation of the ship super cool. I expected it to be well preserved in the artic temperature waters, but even so! I really like how sharp the split timbers on the mast looked.

I know everyone is really worried now that the wreck is going to get raided by treasure hunters, but I do hope that this doesn't end up being the case. I also hope that the ship is left at the bottom of the ocean because there is clearly a lot of cool animal life attached to the wreck and I hope it people respect the animal life and not just the wreck (it would be pretty sad for all those interesting creatures to get killed to see the wreck dredged to the surface).

I find mummification and examples of extreme preservation deeply fascinating. The wreck looks like it could have sunk just yesterday, but it belongs to such a different era!

The whole story & discovery reminded me a bit of the story of the doomed Franklin Expedition in 1845, which was a failed British voyage of actic exploration to traverse the Northwest Passage. In the 1980s the graves of some of the doomed crew were discovered on a remote artic island and in one of the, the astoundingly well preserved remains of crew members John Torrington and John Hartnel were discovered; they was so well preserved that despite being dead for over 150, you can see still the blue irises in their eyes (etc). You can see pictures of their remains in this website as well as footage of the Franklin wreck and its story in this link, there's a lot of interesting forensic science involved studying the unfortunate mens remains as people tried to get to the bottom of what exactly happened to the doomed voyage so long ago (warning: some may find the corpse pictures a little macabre): https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-torrington-franklin-expedition-mummies

 

[Isopod]

Here is some nice video footage of The Endurance too BTW :)

 

[bob012345]

I know everyone is really worried now that the wreck is going to get raided by treasure hunters, but I do hope that this doesn't end up being the case.

I think that is why the team delayed announcing for several days so no one would know the precise location they were at when they found it since they were giving live location positions.