Ernest Shackleton, an Antarctic explorer, recently had his ship, the Quest, discovered almost perfectly preserved on the seabed about 28.78 km off the Canadian coast. The ship was once captained by Shackleton and held the history of his voyages as well as artifacts from expeditions that continued until it sank in 1962.
The discovery of the Quest was a significant moment for John Geiger, the expedition leader and executive director of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. After 17 hours of searching in a 44.4 km wide area, a team of international experts located the Quest using sonar equipment on June 9. Before discovering the ship, the team spent months analyzing and pinpointing the best spot to detect it, under the direction of oceanographer David Mearns.
Shackleton was on his fourth Antarctic expedition when he passed away at the age of 47 while docked on South Georgia in the South Atlantic. He was buried there while his crew continued to carry out their expedition. However, due to thick ice, they faced challenges completing their journey and eventually returned to Cape Town in South Africa.
Originally, Shackleton had planned to use the Quest for an Arctic expedition in Canada but was denied by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. His death marked the end of an era in Antarctic exploration. After being sold to a Norwegian company, it went on to participate in several other expeditions before becoming a sealing ship and eventually sinking offshore in May 1962 after colliding with ice in Labrador Sea off Canada’s East Coast. The crew evacuated and marked its final location about 2km from where it was found by researchers later this year.
According to Mearns, who led an earlier search for another wreckage site using remote-operated vehicles (ROVs), which failed due to poor visibility caused by cloudy weather conditions that day.
The RCGS plans to return to this newfound wreckage site later this year with ROVs equipped with cameras that can capture high-resolution images of any damage caused by human activities or climate change effects during its lifetime.
In conclusion, discovering the Quest is not only a remarkable achievement for Shackleton’s legacy but also opens up opportunities for researchers worldwide seeking answers about life on Earth thousands of years ago through studying ancient shipswrecks like these.
