Researchers to survey Shackleton and Scott shipwrecks in North Atlantic

Researchers began an expedition in the North Atlantic on Wednesday to survey Quest and Terra Nova, the last ships tied to Sir Ernest Shackleton and Captain Robert Falcon Scott. The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, working with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, sent the research vessel Atlantis, the human-occupied vehicle Alvin and a remotely operated vehicle to build digital twins of both wrecks with high-definition 5.2K video and Canadian VOYIS photogrammetric technology.

Atlantis is serving as the expedition’s base of operations for Alvin and the ROV, giving researchers a mobile platform to map the wrecks and the debris fields around them.

RCGS and expedition leader John Geiger discovered Quest in the Labrador Sea in 2024. Quest was the ship on which Shackleton died in 1922. This is the first time anyone has visited Quest’s wreck with their own eyes. The Schmidt Ocean Institute discovered Terra Nova in 2012. Terra Nova was Scott’s final ship and later sank off Greenland in September 1943 after a second life as a sealing and cargo vessel. This summer’s work is its first comprehensive visual survey and only the second time a submersible has reached the wreck.

David Mearns, the co-chief scientist and a leading shipwreck expert, called the effort to create detailed digital records of both ships a rare, “once-in-a-generation” opportunity meant to inspire the next generation of explorers.