Terra Nova Pictures: Antarctic Explorer's Shipwreck Found

Terra Nova Discovery
Photograph courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute
The S.S. Terra Nova, a ship best known for its early Antarctic exploration, has likely been found off Greenland, an ocean-research group announced this week. Among the evidence: this picture of a mast lying in the North Atlantic.
Originally a whaler, the wooden vessel carried British Navy Capt. Robert Falcon Scott and his crew to Antarctica during the 1910-1912 Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole. (Related: "Rare Pictures: Scott's South Pole Expedition, 100 Years Later.")
After its polar days, the Terra Nova lived on as a supply vessel until it was damaged by ice and sank off southern Greenland in 1943.
A team led by the Schmidt Ocean Institute made the discovery July 11 while testing the new ship R/V Falkor's echo sounders-devices that help map the seafloor using acoustic waves.
Marine technician and history buff Leighton Rolley knew the general region of shallow water where the Terra Nova had sunk, so the team selected this region for their tests. Later comparisons of the sunken ship's features—including its length—with a museum scale model and historic photographs of the Terra Nova suggested a match.
Due to concerns for the Terra Nova's preservation, the exact location and depth of the wreck are being kept secret, according to Victor Zykov, Schmidt's director of science operations.
"It's a wonderful achievement—we're only starting to appreciate the importance of this find," Zykov said.
Clemson University historian Stephanie Barczewski said via email, "That the Terra Nova was found in the year of the hundredth anniversary of Scott's [reaching the South Pole makes] finding it even more special."
—Christine Dell'Amore
Published August 17, 2012
Battling Sea Ice
Photograph by Herbert Ponting
On her polar voyage, Terra Nova (pictured amid sea ice in 1911) carried 3 motor sledges, 162 mutton carcasses, 19 ponies, 33 dogs, and more than 450 tons of coal—not to mention 65 people, from sailors to scientists.
Though ice was ultimately her downfall, the heavily laden vessel persevered through thick Antarctic ice during the polar expedition, gaining the admiration of Caption Scott.
As she "bumped the floes with mighty shocks, crushing and grinding a way through some ... she seemed like a living thing fighting a great fight," Scott wrote in his journal.
(See pictures from the Amundsen and Scott expeditions.)
Published August 17, 2012
Sunken Ship
Photograph courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute
The Terra Nova rises like a mountain peak from the seafloor in a recent acoustic image taken from an echo sounder aboard the R/V Falkor.
The acoustic beams fan across the seafloor—"kind of like mowing a lawn"—providing a 3-D depiction of seabed features, said team member Jonathan Beaudoin, of the University of New Hampshire's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. Other expedition members hailed from the French research institute Ifremer and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The bluish depressions and lines in the image are gouges from movements of icebergs, which are plentiful off Greenland.
Beaudoin described the atmosphere aboard the ship after finding the wreck as "very jubilant. It was a team effort—from the deckhands to the captain, everyone was really into this.
"It was one of the few times in life when I thought, This must be what it feels like to be on a team and win a gold medal."
(Read "Race to the South Pole" in National Geographic magazine.)
Published August 17, 2012
Overboard
Photograph courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute
SHRIMP, a device fitted with two underwater video cameras, is lowered off the side of the R/V Falkor on August 11, a month after the wreck's discovery.
By towing SHRIMP above the wreck, the team confirmed the remains of a 187-foot-long (57-meter-long) wooden ship—until then imaged only acoustically.
Among the debris is the ship's metal funnel, or chimney, which turned out to be a visual match with the funnel in photographs of the Terra Nova.
"It's somewhat emotional, looking at structures built ... over a hundred years ago, and how they gradually fall apart under the effects of time," Schmidt's Zykov said.
(Also see "WWII Wreck Photos: 48 Tons of Silver Recovered Three Miles Down.")
Published August 17, 2012
Into the Deep
Photograph courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute
Flashlights leading the way, SHRIMP approaches the Terra Nova wreck site on August 11. The instrument, originally developed for educational purposes, proved handy for the first visual investigation of the sunken ship.
Though the wreck site's exact depth is being kept private, the Schmidt team was surveying waters between about 30 and 6,000 feet (10 and 1,800 meters) deep.
The governments of the United States and Denmark—which has jurisdiction over Greenland's waters-will decide what will happen next with the Terra Nova, Zykov noted.
(See "Best Underwater Pictures: Winners of 2012 Amateur Contest.")
Published August 17, 2012
"Oasis of Life"
Photograph courtesy Schmidt Ocean Institute
Anemones, sea stars, and sponges swarm Terra Nova's railings on August 14—"a little oasis of life that the ship created" amid an otherwise barren landscape, Zykov said.
"We're very happy we were able to make this happen. We hope this discovery will contribute to" history, he said.
Clemson's Barczewski also hopes "the discovery reminds us all once again of the courage of those men of the heroic age of polar exploration.
"We should celebrate their determination, at the risk of their own lives, to help us learn more about our world and natural environment."
Christine Dell'Amore is the author of the book South Pole: The British Antarctic Expedition.
Published August 17, 2012
Next: See Rare Pictures of Scott's Expedition
Photograph by Herbert G. Ponting, National Geographic
Published August 17, 2012