The Endurance, the ship crushed by ice in Antarctic waters and abandoned by Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and crew in November 1915, has been found almost 107 years later, three kilometres below sea level at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.

The Endurance22 mission, organised by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, tracked the vessel down using advanced underwater vehicles fitted with high-definition cameras and scanners.

The biggest surprise? The 44-metre, triple masted wooden ship was in remarkably well-kept condition.

The ‘Endurance’ ship has been found off the coast of Antarctica. The lost vessel was crushed by sea-ice and sank to the ocean floor more than a century ago. Previous attempts to locate the shipwreck had failed https://t.co/WgrBuIruDh pic.twitter.com/y8gTqsdHPi

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 10, 2022

"This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen," said Falkland Islands-born maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound, the expedition's director of exploration.

"It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation. We are overwhelmed by our good fortune."

But why? Why was a wooden ship in such good nick after 107 years in the deep that even its name was still clearly visible on the stern?

There is evidence that ship wrecks tend to be preserved better in cold water regions than warm water areas. But in this case, there seems to be one particular factor at play.

According to British historian and broadcaster Dan Snow, who accompanied the expedition, it was because the Antarctic seabed does not have any wood-eating micro-organisms. "The water has the clarity of distilled water," Snow said.

Deep-sea polar biologist Dr Michelle Taylor from Essex University told the BBC a similar story.

"It would appear that there is little wood deterioration, inferring that the wood-munching animals found in other areas of our ocean are, perhaps unsurprisingly, not in the forest-free Antarctic region," Dr Taylor said.

QUICK REMINDER: WHO WAS SHACKLETON AND WHY IS THIS WRECK IMPORTANT?

“Endurance22 has reached its goal. We have made polar history with the discovery of Endurance, and successfully completed the world’s most challenging shipwreck search." - Dr John Shears, Expedition Leader pic.twitter.com/0s9IAosKER

— Endurance22 (@Endurance_22) March 9, 2022

• The Imperial Trans-Antarctica expedition of 1914-1917 aimed to cross the Antarctic continent from one coast to the other via the South Pole. Ernest Shackleton led the expedition.
• The main expedition never so much as set foot on continental Antarctica. The ship Endurance was trapped in Antarctic pack ice with no chance of rescue, or of contacting the outside world.
• The Endurance was trapped by ice in January 1915. In November 1915, it was crushed and sank.
• The men eventually set sail in three lifeboats. There numbered 28 in all, including Shackleton. Most were left at an uninhabited wild speck in the ocean, Elephant Island, 557 km from where the Endurance sank.
• Shackleton then sailed onwards with five men to the whaling station at South Georgia, some 1300 km north. They landed on the wrong side of the island and had to scale mountains and glaciers to reach help, which they did, before sailing back to rescue the men on Elephant Island.
• In one of history's great survival epics, no lives were lost.