Shipwrecks of Shackleton and Scott recreated in 3D digital form after deep sea expedition

Canadian scientists visit remains of polar exploration vessels Shipwrecks of Shackleton and Scott recreated in 3D digital form after deep sea expedition Canadian scientists visit remains of polar exploration vessels in ‘golden era for shipwreck investigating’ Moments after devouring the final glimmers of light, the seafloor offered nothing but darkness and silt. Then the bow appeared. More than 1,000ft (305 metres) below the surface of the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Canada, the skeleton of the final ship used by the famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton appeared in its silty grave. “To see a very large ship in the abyss, and to realise you are among the first humans to see it, and to realise that it is largely intact is a powerful experience,” said John Geiger, the head of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS). “It moves you.” Days later, Geiger was again inside the Alvin, the first submersible to take people to the Titanic shipwreck four decades prior, staring at the remains of the Terra Nova – the ship used by Robert Falcon Scott on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition . View image in fullscreen The Royal Canadian Geographical Society CEO, John Geiger, returns from a dive to Terra Nova in the submersible Alvin. Photograph: Martin Hartley/Canadian Geographic An expedition to the two ships began in early July, funded by the RCGS, and has now released what the team hopes will define future expeditions to the fringes of the planet: highly detailed 3D “digital twins” of the wrecks. Geiger, the expedition leader, said the project represented a “golden era for shipwreck hunting and investigating” as technological leaps allowed researchers to better map and model the final resting sites of the famed ships. The 21-day expedition left Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts on 2 July and for two weeks has been attempting to digitally preserve the final ships of Britain’s most acclaimed polar explorers. View image in fullscreen Alvin, the first submersible to take people to the Titanic shipwreck, has been used to visit the Quest and the Terra Nova. Photograph: Martin Hartley/Canadian Geographic Shackleton was among the titans of an era historians often refer to as the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration, one defined by obsession and hubris. His 1914 exploration trip to the Antarctic region on the Endurance ended after his ship was trapped in the ice and eventually crushed. The crew survived on ice floes, then made their way to Elephant Island, off the east coast of Antarctica. Over repeated trips that took months, Shackleton ensured his entire team survived. In 1922, at 47, he died of a heart attack while on Quest, the ship he had outfitted to explore Canada’s high Arctic. The Quest later sank in 1962 and wasn’t discovered until 2024, in an expedition also led by Geiger. The Terra Nova, a wooden-hulled three-masted ship, carried Scott and his crew in their 1910 bid to be the first people to reach the south pole. Scott reached i