Cool discovery

From the newly founded (2009) Schmidt Ocean Institute:

Polar Expedition Vessel S.S. Terra Nova discovered
Last month, during routine functional performance testing of the mutibeam mapping echosounders on the Schmidt Ocean Institute�s flagship R/V Falkor, the team aboard�including researchers from the University of New Hampshire, Ifremer, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution�discovered the S.S. Terra Nova, a whaler, sealer and polar exploration ship that sunk off the southern coast of Greenland in September, 1943, after being damaged by ice.

The performance verification of R/V Falkor�s scientific echo sounders precedes oceanographic research cruises set to begin in 2013. The tests included a shallow water survey off the southern coast of Greenland to assess the Kongsberg EM710 multibeam mapping echo sounder�s performance in complex topography. The testing took place on July 11, 2012, as part of the planned R/V Falkor field trials during the transit of the vessel from Newcastle, UK to Nuuk, Greenland.

Some information on the S.S. Terra Nova from Wrecksite The significance? From the Beeb:

Scott's wrecked ship Terra Nova found off Greenland
The wreck of the ship that carried Captain Robert Scott on his doomed expedition to the Antarctic a century ago has been discovered off Greenland.

The SS Terra Nova was found by a team from a US research company.

Scott and his party set off from Cardiff aboard the Terra Nova in 1910 with the aim of becoming the first expedition to reach the South Pole.

The ship had a life after the polar trek, sinking off Greenland's south coast in 1943.

It had been on a journey to deliver supplies to base stations in the Arctic when it was damaged by ice. The Terra Nova's crew was saved by the US Coast Guard cutter Southwind.

On arriving at the geographical South Pole in January 1912, Scott and his party discovered they had been beaten to it by a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen.

The polar team led by Scott died on their return journey from the pole; their bodies were found by a search party eight months later.

Their endeavour became popularly known as the Terra Nova expedition.

Scott and his crew died 100 years ago -- starved to death only eleven miles from a food cache. His final words:

"We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.

It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.

R. SCOTT.

For God's sake look after our people."

Why are our schools not turning out people like this? Guts. Backbone.