“A frontier that we don’t really know much about.”Ĭhris Michael and Laura Paddison, Seascape editorsĮxplosives are detonated in an attempt to break the cargo ship MSC Napoli near Branscombe, England, July 2007. “If shipwrecks are the sirens that lure us into the depths, they encourage exploration into what truly is the last frontier of the planet,” says James Delgado of shipwreck company Search Inc. The pull of these wrecks has been a boon for science, shedding light on a part of the planet that has been shrouded in mystery. Shipwrecks are mirrors showing us not just who we’ve been, but what our future holds on a fast-heating globe. They are victims, too, of the same threats faced by the ocean: invasive species eating away at their hulls, acidification slowly causing them to disintegrate. From glimpses into storied wrecks such as the Titanic and Ernest Shackleton’s doomed Endurance, to slave vessels such as the Clotilda or Spanish galleons lined with plundered South American gold that confront us with our troubled history, shipwrecks are time capsules, holding clues to who we are.īut they are also ocean actors in their own right, home to huge colonies of marine life. There are 3m lost vessels under the waves, and with new technology finally enabling us to explore them, Guardian Seascape is dedicating a series to what is being found: the secret histories, hidden treasures and the lessons they teach.
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