WHOI Expedition Surveys Shackleton's and Scott's Wrecks

A Once-in-a-Generation Deep-Sea Survey

According to a report by The Maritime Executive, a joint expedition led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is currently underway to document two of polar exploration’s most storied shipwrecks: the Quest, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s final vessel, and the Terra Nova, which carried Captain Robert Falcon Scott toward the South Pole. The mission aims to capture detailed imagery of both wrecks and produce 3D digital replicas, something neither ship has undergone before.

Two Historic Vessels, Two Different Fates

The Quest, a 125-tonne motor-sailing steamship, was the ship Shackleton commanded on the 1921/22 Shackleton-Rowett expedition. Shackleton died aboard the vessel on January 5, 1922, at anchor off Grytviken, South Georgia, at age 47. The wreck was rediscovered in 2024, resting at a depth of 390 meters off Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Terra Nova, meanwhile, transported Scott and his crew on their fatal 1912 push to reach the South Pole. The ship survived that expedition and remained in active service for decades afterward, eventually sinking in 1943 while delivering supplies to U.S. military bases during the Second World War, after sustaining ice damage. It was located in 2012 at a depth of 300 meters off southwestern Greenland.

Alvin Returns to Service in Style

The expedition’s most notable milestone so far has been a dive to the Quest by WHOI’s human-occupied submersible Alvin — the first time anyone has directly viewed the wreck in person. The team also expects to reach the Terra Nova, which would mark only the second occasion a submersible has visited that site.

Significantly, this mission represents Alvin’s return to active duty following a routine overhaul and a U.S. Navy certification process. In service since 1964 and credited with more than 5,300 dives, including the historic 1986 mission that produced the first images of the Titanic, the three-person submersible can now operate at depths of up to 6,500 meters.

Researchers aboard WHOI’s research vessel Atlantis are also deploying a remotely operated vehicle equipped with high-definition cameras and photogrammetric technology to map both wrecks and their surrounding debris fields in detail.

Why This Matters Beyond Polar History

While the expedition is framed as a historical and scientific undertaking, the survey methods being applied — high-resolution photogrammetry, ROV-based hull mapping, and submersible-assisted visual documentation — mirror techniques increasingly relevant to commercial marine surveying. Condition assessments of aging or wrecked hulls, whether for insurance, salvage feasibility, or environmental risk evaluation, increasingly rely on the same combination of imaging and 3D modeling tools showcased here. For ship owners and managers, the project is a reminder of how far underwater inspection technology has advanced: features that were once impossible to document accurately, such as hull deformation, corrosion patterns, or debris distribution around a wreck, can now be captured with a level of precision that supports far more informed technical and legal decision-making. As WHOI’s Dwight Coleman, Director of Ocean Imaging, put it, the goal is to “see and re-create two historically significant shipwrecks and bring the stories of two great explorers to life.”

Looking Ahead

The expedition continues, with researchers hoping to complete comprehensive visual surveys of both wrecks before the mission concludes. Once processed, the imagery and photogrammetric data are expected to yield detailed 3D reconstructions, offering historians, oceanographers, and the public an unprecedented look at two vessels central to the golden age of polar exploration.

Reviewed by Ibrahim Halil Ceylan, Marine Surveyor at Apeks Marine.