Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's search for a lost ship has found it 106 years after it sank off Antarctica.
The wooden ship Endurance has been remarkably retained in the Weddell Sea, approximately 10,000 feet underwater.
The discovery is "a milestone in polar history", said Mensun Bound, a marine archaeologist and director of exploration on the expedition, called Endurance 22.
"It's the best wooden ship I've ever seen. It's straight, proud of the seafloor, intact and in a great state of preservation. You can even see the 'endurance' across the stern are," Bound said.
Shackleton's trans-Antarctic expedition went dangerously awry
In 1914, as World War I broke out, British explorer Shackleton set out to cross Antarctica. The plan was for Shackleton to carry 27 men on two ships, the Endurance and Aurora, to reach different locations on the continent and trace the two routes, to sled across the ice. But in January 1915, Endurance got stuck in ice off the coast of Antarctica.
The man stayed on the ship for months, but the pressure of the ice slowly began to crush him. On October 27, 1915, Shackleton ordered Endurance to be abandoned. The men were told not to collect more than 2 pounds of personal gear from the ship; Most of the ship's supplies were already inaccessible due to broken timbers in the hull. Endurance eventually broke down and sank in the Weddell Sea on November 21, 1915.
The crew built a new camp on an ice floe, and any ambitions to cross Antarctica ended. The mission was now one of survival, a saga that would spread before all the men were rescued in August 1916.
Aurora also got stuck in the snow. Three people on that voyage died before the last members of the crew were rescued in early 1917.
The mission to find the long-missing ship was successful
This year's expedition to find Endurance set off from Cape Town, South Africa on February 5.
Expedition leader John Shears said the quest for Endurance was "probably the most challenging shipwreck search ever."
The expedition used sonar to locate the sunken ship. It was located about 4 miles south of where Captain Frank Worsley noted the ship's location in 1915.
The team then used an autonomous underwater vehicle with cameras on the hull and deck to float and confirm what the team had found.
"It can only be one ship," Shears said. "In this area, few ships have ever been here. We're only, I think, the fourth ship to reach this spot in the Wendell Sea. It's endurance. It couldn't be anything more."
Shears says he was stunned by the vessel's good condition: hardly anything remains on it, and even some of the original paint remains intact.
"You can see inside the hatchway, the stairs. You can see the ropes and the rigging. It's like it just sank yesterday," he said.
Protected as a historic site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty, the wreck will remain where it was found. This means that although Dheeraj is being filmed and surveyed, it will not be disturbed.
The expedition team has now returned to Cape Town.
Bound, the expedition's director of exploration, said the discovery is not only about the past but also about bringing the story of Shackleton and Endurance to the next generation.
"We hope our discovery will engage youth and inspire with the pioneering spirit, courage and perseverance of those who made the Endurance journey to Antarctica," Bound said. "We pay tribute to the navigational prowess of Captain Frank Worsley, Captain of Endurance, whose detailed records were invaluable in our quest to locate the wreck."