TOP 15 STRANGEST Discoveries in Ice
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00:00Bundle up and ready your ice axes as we delve into these astonishing frozen finds.
00:05Let's begin with number 15, an entire mountain range.
00:08In 1958, a Soviet expedition uncovered an entire mountain range.
00:14Buried under 600 meters of ice in Antarctica,
00:17the Gembertsev mountain range is absolutely massive.
00:20It extends for about 1250 kilometers
00:23and has peaks as high as 3390 meters in altitude.
00:28This makes the mountain range about as large as the European Alps.
00:31Yet despite its size, its hard-to-reach location under ice
00:35means that scientists know pretty much nothing about its features.
00:39Number 14, gold.
00:42While most gold is located underground,
00:45melting glaciers have revealed new deposits.
00:48During the last ice age, glaciers often transported gold-bearing rocks.
00:52Some of those golden rocks have become frozen inside the glaciers.
00:55And while the gold is usually scattered throughout as sediment,
00:58they've begun to reveal significant quantities of gold when the glacier melts.
01:03As global warming continues, glacial streams will likely see an uptick in gold volume,
01:08allowing some prospectors to strike it rich if they get the timing just right.
01:13Number 13, a new dinosaur species.
01:17In 1986, Argentinian geologists Eduardo Oliveiro and Roberto Scasso
01:22found a new species of dinosaur.
01:24On an expedition to Antarctica's James Ross Island,
01:27they found the bones of an ankylosaur under the ice.
01:30And while it took an entire decade to excavate the fossil
01:33thanks to the ground frost and the harsh weather,
01:35they uncovered a new species that's now called Antarctopelta,
01:39or Antarctic Shield in English.
01:41To date, this one fossil is the only specimen of the species that's ever been found.
01:46Number 12, Yucca the Mammoth.
01:49In 2010, a group of Siberian tusk hunters
01:52came across one of the world's most incredible Ice Age relics.
01:56Known as Yucca, she was a woolly mammoth that roamed the icy tundra about 39,000 years ago.
02:02She likely met her end after falling into a swamp and getting stuck,
02:05and it's due to this unique position that her lowered body was almost perfectly preserved.
02:10In fact, it's in such good condition that scientists were able to extract flowing blood,
02:15as it turns out that mammoth blood has a natural antifreeze.
02:18Yucca is now displayed in Moscow,
02:20and would certainly be worth visiting on the next trip to the city.
02:25Number 11, A Box of Jewels.
02:28In 2013, a French alpinist was hiking across the glacier on Mont Blanc
02:32when he spotted a metal box in the ice.
02:35The box said, made in India,
02:37and upon opening it, he found it filled with about 100 colorful gems
02:41consisting of a mix of sapphires, emeralds, and rubies.
02:44Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the jewels had come from a crash Indian Airlines flight
02:49from either 1950 or 1966.
02:51However, despite searching, authorities were unable to find the original owner.
02:55As a result, the decision was made to split the jewels in half
02:58with both the alpinist and the owners of the land,
03:01leading to the alpinist going home with a cool $340,000.
03:06Number 10, Grasshoppers.
03:08So, while grasshoppers and glaciers are two things that don't seem very compatible,
03:13you can get two of them in one in the U.S. state of Montana.
03:17Located within the Beartooth Mountains of Custer National Forest,
03:20the so-called grasshopper glacier is far different than the typical white glaciers.
03:25That's because it's got a grayish color,
03:27and this is because it has tens of millions of locusts located inside of it.
03:31Now, I'm not entirely sure how they got in there, but there are a couple of theories.
03:35The most popular is that centuries ago,
03:37a swarm of billions of them were migrating over the Rocky Mountains
03:40when they suddenly were trapped by a massive winter storm.
03:43The ice then froze some of the trapped specimens in time,
03:46creating the incredible sight that's there today.
03:49Now, grasshopper glacier, as it came to be known,
03:51caught the attention of scientists
03:53after being discovered in the early 1900s by geologist J.P. Kimball.
03:57When he sent samples of the insect species to the U.S. Bureau of Entomology in 1914,
04:02it was discovered that they were Rocky Mountain locusts.
04:05This was a species that went extinct over a century ago,
04:08likely due to their seeds being overrun by the plows of farmers in the American West.
04:13Thus, this discovery was a scientific treasure,
04:16as the freezing led to locusts being very well preserved.
04:19And the grasshopper glacier isn't the only locust-filled glacier around.
04:22In fact, until the late 20th century,
04:24finding frozen grasshopper remains was pretty common.
04:27However, lower snowfall rates since the late 1980s
04:30and higher temperatures have caused many similar glaciers to melt.
04:33So, if you want to see grasshopper glacier for yourself,
04:35I'd suggest making the trip sooner rather than later.
04:38Now, getting there is quite the trek.
04:40After all, you have to use an off-road vehicle for part of the way,
04:42and then trek for several hours,
04:44with this often being in the face of bad weather.
04:46And it is because of this that the glacier is only considered to be accessible
04:49from late July to September,
04:51making it a difficult, yet worthwhile sight to visit.
05:00While the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs may be the most famous space rock,
05:04Allan Hills 84001 is a close second.
05:08Discovered in the Allan Hills Ice Field of Antarctica in 1984,
05:11the 1.9 kg igneous rock is thought to have crystallized from magma on Mars
05:17about 4.5 billion years ago,
05:19and later to have been shocked and altered,
05:21perhaps by one or more nearby meteoroid or asteroid impacts,
05:25into what it is today.
05:27By our estimates, it was formed as part of the crust on Mars about 4 billion years ago.
05:31It stayed there until about 17 million years ago,
05:34and then, after an asteroid hit Mars, it went spinning into space.
05:38From there, it zipped around for many years,
05:40before eventually landing in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago.
05:44While this makes the rock old and interesting,
05:46its age is far from its most controversial attribute.
05:49You see, in 1996, NASA scientists,
05:51who carried out microscopic and chemical analyses on the meteorite,
05:55made a shocking suggestion,
05:57that the strange carbonates in the meteorite
05:59had been produced by Martian microorganisms.
06:02After all, the carbonate grains that were observed
06:04are associated with organic compounds
06:06and contain minute crystals of iron minerals
06:08similar in size and shape to those produced by bacteria.
06:12If this hypothesis was true, this would mean that,
06:14in all likelihood, there was life on Mars.
06:17Given we haven't found definitive proof of that so far,
06:20this would have been, to put it lightly, a big deal.
06:23However, in subsequent investigations,
06:25other scientists refuted these claims.
06:27They instead said the carbonate grains
06:29could be explained by non-biological process.
06:32In 2022, these naysayers were proven right,
06:35as an authoritative report in the Journal of Science
06:37confirmed that the carbonate grains were not signs of life.
06:41Instead, they were created by water.
06:43Now, this shouldn't dash your hopes yet.
06:45After all, there is still good science
06:47that suggests that Mars may have once been hospitable to life.
06:51However, given the planet's current state,
06:53the chance of any life being found on Mars today is slim to none.
06:56And while this makes this piece of space rock a lot less exciting,
07:00it can still be visited today at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
07:048. A Baby Mammoth
07:07Canada's Yukon Territory is known for its gold deposits,
07:11and on a rainy day in June of 2022,
07:13miner Travis Mudry was working away to extract some.
07:17Since the mines are covered in permafrost,
07:19he had to dig into a wall of hard, frozen dirt.
07:22And while doing so, he made a crazy discovery.
07:25Inside the muck, he spotted a dark, shiny animal with short legs.
07:29Suspecting he'd found a mummified baby buffalo,
07:32Mudry began inspecting the creature.
07:34However, he was in for a shock after he realized that the animal had a trunk.
07:39Upon showing his boss, all work was stopped,
07:41and the experts were called in.
07:43While Grant Zazula, the Yukon government's paleontologist,
07:46wasn't able to arrive right away,
07:48he sent two geologists who rushed to the creek,
07:50surveyed the site, and retrieved the remains
07:52less than an hour before a storm struck.
07:54Once secure, the mammoth was wrapped in a tarp
07:57and brought to a nearby location for a ceremony with scientists,
08:00miners, politicians, and First Nations elders.
08:03Gathered in a circle, the elders offered a blessing
08:05and named the mammoth Nunchogah,
08:07which means big baby animal in their language.
08:10After a quick examination, they ruled that Nunchogah was female,
08:13who was probably about a month old
08:15when she passed away more than 30,000 years ago.
08:18Based on where she was found,
08:19it's more than likely that she was grazing with her mother
08:22when she strayed from her mother's side
08:24and got stuck in the mud, leading to her death.
08:26Now, the reason why Nunchogah was so well-preserved
08:29is likely due to her quick passing
08:31and the unique location of her final moments.
08:33You see, in most parts of the world,
08:35only the fossilized bones of Ice Age creatures remain.
08:38However, in the Yukon, permafrost acts as a sort of freezer,
08:42preserving soft tissues like muscles, skin, and hair,
08:45alongside the important information like DNA.
08:47It's because of this that in recent decades,
08:49miners in territory have unearthed
08:51the well-preserved remains of several different animals,
08:54with their findings including a wolf pup,
08:56a caribou calf, and giant camels.
08:58In any case, Nunchogah now holds the title
09:01of being the first complete baby woolly mammoth
09:04found in North America,
09:05and only the second in the world.
09:07As such, her discovery was an incredible stroke of luck
09:10and of great importance to the scientific
09:12and archaeological community.
09:15Moving on to number 7,
09:17an AC-53 Sky Trooper Dakota.
09:20On November 18th of 1946,
09:23a C-53 Sky Trooper Dakota
09:25took off from Tullin Air Base near Vienna, Austria,
09:28bound for Pisa in Northern Italy.
09:30The plane was carrying several high-ranking
09:32Allied officers and their families,
09:34and so in order to play it safe,
09:35Captain Ralph Tate Jr.
09:37decided to take a two-day long route
09:39that would take them through Munich and Marseille
09:41in order to avoid bad weather.
09:43This ended up being an ill-advised plan.
09:46That's because somewhere around Innsbruck,
09:48the plane got caught in bad weather anyways,
09:50causing the pilots to become disoriented
09:52and go off course.
09:53They knew they were in the Alps
09:55because Tate had to dodge several mountain peaks.
09:57However, they mistakenly thought
09:59they were in the French Alps
10:00and not the Austrian Alps.
10:02At some point, a downdraft sent them
10:04towards yet another peak,
10:06and in order to save everyone on board,
10:08Tate intentionally dropped the airplane,
10:10pancaking it onto the Gauley Glacier.
10:12The plane skidded on its belly uphill
10:14for a short while before thankfully
10:16getting stuck in a snowbank.
10:17This slowdown caused the plane to stop
10:19a few hundred meters short of a deep crevasse,
10:21ensuring that everyone remained safe.
10:23The good news was that
10:25only the serious injury among the passengers
10:27was a compound leg fracture.
10:29The bad news was that 12 of them
10:31were now stuck about 3,200 meters up
10:33in the Alps in late November.
10:35Thankfully though, despite the rough landing,
10:37the radio still worked.
10:39However, because the radio signals
10:41deflected off the mountains,
10:42the B-17 bombers sent to look for them
10:44didn't pick them up.
10:46It was because of this that it took a grand total
10:48of three days for the U.S.
10:50and British Air Forces to locate the lost plane,
10:52with the eventual finder being,
10:54according to some sources,
10:56none other than the captain's dad,
10:58who spotted the plane after he sent up a flare.
11:00With the help of local Swiss Alpine soldiers,
11:02all the passengers who were aboard were saved,
11:04giving this story a happy ending.
11:06So this leaves us with the obvious question.
11:08What happened to the plane?
11:10Well, after the incident,
11:12the plane was simply left on the glacier
11:14and mostly forgotten about.
11:16However, in 2012, three university students
11:18from Canada found the C-53's
11:20propeller while hiking the glacier.
11:22They first thought it was a log protruding
11:24from the ice, but after investigating,
11:26realized that it was a plane propeller.
11:28This find soon grabbed local headlines,
11:30and as the glacier continues to melt,
11:32it's likely that it will reveal
11:34more and more relics from this crash.
11:40In October of 2017,
11:42scientists were in for a shock
11:44when a strange hole opened up in the middle
11:46of Antarctica's winter sea ice.
11:48What made this hole so shocking
11:50is that it was very atypical,
11:52massive in size.
11:54It was about as large as the US state of Maine,
11:56and seemingly come out of nowhere.
11:58As you might imagine, scientists got to studying it,
12:00and they soon determined that it was Apollinia.
12:02In essence, Apollinia forms
12:04because the deep water in that part
12:06of the southern ocean is warmer
12:08and saltier than the surface water.
12:10Ocean currents can at times bring the warmer
12:12water upwards, where it melts the blankets
12:14of ice that had formed on the ocean's surface.
12:16That melting created
12:18the Apollinia. To make matters worse,
12:20since the water in the hole is continuously
12:22exposed to the atmosphere above,
12:24it makes it difficult for new ice layers to form.
12:26While we know how Apollinias
12:28work, there's still a lot of
12:30mystery surrounding them.
12:32First and foremost, they tend to occur on the coast
12:34where ice is close to non-frozen seawater.
12:36However, in this case, the Apollinia
12:38opened up very deep in the interior
12:40of the continent, puzzling scientists.
12:42We still have little idea
12:44of what long-term impacts of Apollinia
12:46are, and whether they can
12:48cause serious harm to the local environment.
12:50There are even suggestions that they
12:52may be linked to climate change, although
12:54this is yet to be definitively proven.
12:56Using data from satellites, autonomous
12:58floats, and tagged marine animals,
13:00the team determined that a turbulent eddy
13:02around Maud Rise brought
13:04more salt into the sea, which
13:06was then transferred to the surface through a process
13:08called Ekman transport.
13:10They then determined that the Apollinias formed
13:12in this way can have quite the impact,
13:14as they can change how water moves around
13:16and how currents carry heat towards Antarctica.
13:205. Iron Age Skis
13:22While humans
13:24from the Iron Age were far
13:26different than we are today, one thing
13:28that they did have was, above
13:30all things, skis.
13:32And in 2014, a team of scientists found
13:34a single, archaic ski in Norway's
13:36National Park.
13:38Seven years later, a matching ski was found
13:40just a few meters away, and in even better
13:42condition than its counterpart.
13:44Now, it's worth mentioning that skis have a rather
13:46long history. The archaeological
13:48record suggests that hunters in Europe
13:50and Asia began using skis to
13:52chase game around the end of the last Ice Age,
13:54about 11,000 years ago.
13:56To date, the oldest confirmed ski,
13:58which was unearthed in Russia, is about 8,000
14:00years old. And periodically,
14:02archaeologists in Scandinavia have found
14:04wooden skis and ski-like artifacts
14:06to date, as early as 3,200
14:08BC. Now, the skis
14:10in question are no older than what we've found
14:12before. In fact, they're believed to be a relatively
14:14young set, at just 1,300 years old.
14:16What makes them stand out and earn
14:18a spot on this list is the condition.
14:20Measuring in at about 188 cm
14:22long and about 18 cm wide,
14:24the skis are sizable, and
14:26according to the measurement, the second ski is slightly
14:28larger than the first. According to
14:30archaeologist Lars Pilow of Norway's
14:32Glacier Archaeology Program,
14:34"...the skis are not identical, but we
14:36should not expect them to be. The skis are
14:38handmade, not mass-produced.
14:40They have a long and individual history of wear
14:42and repair before Iron Age skiers
14:44used them together, and they ended up
14:46on the ice." Beyond their
14:48size, the skis are also notable for their
14:50features. Both have raised footholds,
14:52leather straps, and twisted
14:54birch bark bindings that would have been
14:56attached through holes in the footholds.
14:58It's believed that the ski's owner
15:00was a hunter, traveler, or both,
15:02and the find shows that despite being
15:04geographically remote, the high mountains
15:06of southern Norway were teeming with
15:08activity 1,300 years ago.
15:10It seems like this set of skis is
15:12also a bit different than what has typically been
15:14found. After the discovery of the first ski,
15:16the team wondered whether its underside
15:18had once been lined with fur.
15:20This would have been done, theoretically, to
15:22give the skis more grip. However,
15:24the new skis seem to have a furrow like those
15:26found on some other ancient and modern skis.
15:28This furrow would have no purpose
15:30if covered with fur, leading researchers
15:32to believe that the skis didn't feature
15:34many of it.
15:36Number 4. Ancient Viruses
15:38While it may sound
15:40crazy, it turns out that viruses can
15:42survive under ice for thousands of years.
15:44Now, it's practically impossible to know
15:46how many ancient viruses are frozen
15:48and how many have already been quietly
15:50unleashed. However, there are some
15:52that scientists have picked up on.
15:54It's worth noting that, so far, scientists
15:56have only studied permafrost viruses
15:58that infect single-cell organisms
16:00called amoebas. This is because the viruses
16:02are harmless and provide a good model
16:04for those others that may be lurking under the
16:06ice. As put by computational
16:08biologist Jean-Michel Clavier,
16:10we will never risk isolating a
16:12virus eventually capable of infecting
16:14modern mammals. We do not have any
16:16formal proof that viruses other than amoeba
16:18specific viruses could survive
16:20as long, but there would be no reason
16:22why not, because all viruses basically
16:24have the same property of being inert
16:26particles while outside their host cells.
16:28We do not wish to take the
16:30immense risk of starting a new pandemic with
16:32unknown zombie viruses
16:34from the distant past just to
16:36demonstrate that we're right."
16:38So, here's some of the
16:40so-called safe viruses that have
16:42been found so far. One is
16:44Pythovirus cyberesum.
16:46Considered to be one of the largest viruses ever
16:48found, this 1.5
16:50millimeter long monstrosity is a
16:52thick-walled oval with an opening
16:54at one end. A cork structure
16:56has a cap and a honeycomb-like grid.
16:58Now, this virus was discovered inside a core
17:00of an ancient Siberian permafrost
17:02in the Russian Far East, and it's believed
17:04to be about 30,000 years old.
17:06Molivirus cyberesum
17:08is a second virus that's quite similar to
17:10the first, found in the same
17:1230,000-year-old Siberian permafrost sample.
17:14It's a slightly smaller one and
17:16is protected by a hairy outer layer.
17:18What's interesting about this one is that
17:20if it infects an amoeba, it can produce
17:22and release 200-300 new
17:24viral particles for every single
17:26virus. While it also
17:28poses no danger to humans or other
17:30animals, the discovery of two ancient
17:32viruses in a single sample
17:34suggests that dormant pathogens
17:36often lurk in permafrost.
17:38However, the oldest virus
17:40found in permafrost so far is
17:42Pandoravirus Iedoma.
17:44Dating back to 48,500
17:46years ago, it was found in icy deposits
17:48in the Russian Far East, and it's notable
17:50for having a large, egg-shaped particle that
17:52measures in at 1 micrometer in length.
17:54Now, while all these viruses are kinda
17:56cool, their great variability means
17:58it's also that quite likely a few of them
18:00will be dangerous. After all,
18:02there is a very real chance that the next
18:04COVID or SARS is hiding
18:06deep in that ice. If the ice
18:08melts, it could infect those in the
18:10north of our planet before heading
18:12south, catching most of the planet by surprise.
18:14As such, it's important that we
18:16constantly monitor new viruses in
18:18the Arctic to make sure that this terrifying
18:20possibility does not become
18:22a reality.
18:243. GLACIER GIRL
18:26On July 15th of
18:281942, a squadron of
18:30six P-38 Lightning Fighter
18:32planes and two B-17 Flying
18:34Fortress Bombers got caught in a blizzard
18:36while flying from Greenland to the British
18:38Isles. As a result, they had no choice
18:40but to turn back and conduct an emergency
18:42landing on the glaciers of Greenland.
18:44While all of the crew members were rescued,
18:46nine days later, the aircraft
18:48were left behind. For some
18:50reason or another, they were never retrieved
18:52over the course of the war, and instead,
18:54they sat there for decades. Over
18:56this time period, the ever-shifting ice sheets buried
18:58the aircraft under 75 to 90
19:00meters of ice. However,
19:02despite their remote, hard-to-reach location,
19:0450 years later, the decision was made
19:06to extract one of the P-38 fighters
19:08from the ice. Nicknamed
19:10Glacier Girl, the effort was
19:12pretty huge. Taking a whopping 11
19:14years and about $2 million,
19:16the crew had to spend a lot of time and effort
19:18to lift the plane out of the ice.
19:20This excavation was possible because they made
19:22use of a large heat plate, which
19:24melted the ice and allowed them to tunnel down
19:26to the aircraft. From there, a cavern
19:28was cleared out around the plane with blasts
19:30of hot water, allowing individual pieces
19:32to be resurfaced. Surprisingly,
19:34the plane was in decent condition.
19:36Although the aircraft canopy was crushed by the ice,
19:38all parts were more or less in place.
19:40After a half-million-dollar repair effort,
19:42the plane was in workable condition,
19:44and in October of 2002, she embarked
19:46on her first flight. However, it was on
19:48June 22, 2007, that the
19:50Glacier Girl went on a rather ambitious
19:52flight. The plan was that
19:54she would depart from Teterboro Airport
19:56in New Jersey and attempt to fly across
19:58the Atlantic Ocean to Duxford
20:00in England, with the idea being
20:02she would complete the flight that she had begun
20:04earlier. However, on June 28,
20:06a coolant leak in the right engine
20:08grounded the plane in Goose Bay, which is
20:10a town in northeastern Canada. In
20:12any case, the successful excavation of Glacier
20:14Girl made it seem like the second plane
20:16could be recovered, and
20:18in 2011, an effort began to do just
20:20that. With the help of ground-penetrating
20:22radar mounted onto drones,
20:24the team involved were able to detect one
20:26of the P-38s and determine that it was a plane
20:28known as Echo by its pilots.
20:30As of 2018, the plan was to
20:32go to Greenland in 2019 and use the same
20:34heating strategy that was used in 1992
20:36to excavate it. However,
20:38to date, there seems to be no confirmation
20:40online as to whether or not the excavation of
20:42this second plane actually occurred.
20:48When you think of a mummy, the
20:50long-gone rulers and nobles of ancient
20:52Egypt are probably the ones who come to mind.
20:54However, in 1991,
20:56a frozen mummy of sorts was found
20:58high up in the mountains. The story
21:00goes that two German tourists were hiking
21:02in the Otzal Alps on the border of
21:04Austria and Italy when they came across
21:06a mummy. After being extracted,
21:08the mummy was examined at the University
21:10of Innsbruck, and rather incredibly,
21:12he was soon nicknamed Ötzi,
21:14and determined to be the oldest natural mummy
21:16in Europe. After further examination,
21:18he was determined to have lived somewhere
21:20between 3350 and
21:223105 BC, making
21:24him more than 5,000 years old.
21:26While this should have led to
21:28decomposition, the extremely cold
21:30temperatures in the Alps preserved it
21:32incredibly well. The scientists
21:34involved were able to figure out that Ötzi was about
21:365'2", left-handed,
21:38wore a size 8 shoe, and had brown
21:40eyes, dark brown hair, and tan skin,
21:42suggesting that he was of southern
21:44European heritage despite being located
21:46in the Alps. Unfortunately,
21:48he was in pretty bad shape physically,
21:50as he was lactose intolerant, had a
21:52rare genetic anomaly that prevented his
21:5412th pair of ribs from forming,
21:56and he also suffered from cavities,
21:58intestinal parasites, and Lyme
22:00disease, and had a sore back
22:02alongside sore knees, hips, and shoulders,
22:04meaning he likely lived in continuous
22:06pain. Despite all this, he
22:08still decided to hike through the Alps, and by all
22:10accounts, his journey seemed pretty frantic.
22:12Scientists were able to find his belongings
22:14and figured out he was dressed in warm
22:16clothes, however, it appears that all he carried
22:18was a backpack, axe, dagger,
22:20a bow, arrows, and a small quantity
22:22of food. As a result, it seems
22:24like he must have been hunting and gathering as he
22:26made his way through this rocky terrain.
22:28It's also worth mentioning that while the
22:30remains were examined in Austria, both
22:32the remains and his paraphernalia are
22:34now located in Italy. The reasons
22:36for this have to do with geopolitics.
22:38You see, at the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye
22:40in 1919, the border between
22:42North Tyrol and Austria and South
22:44Tyrol and Italy was defined as
22:46the watershed of the rivers Inn and
22:48Etch. However, the glacier what Sozzi
22:50was found on had since retreated,
22:52complicating the decision as to whether
22:54to find the site was Italian or Austrian.
22:56In 1991, land surveys
22:58were conducted, and while it was determined
23:00that while Ötzi's find site drains
23:02to the Austrian side, the body
23:04was actually located 93 meters
23:06inside Italy. Thankfully,
23:08both sides agreed to be civil. While the
23:10Italians allowed Innsbruck University
23:12to finish the scientific examinations,
23:14from 1998 onwards, Ötzi
23:16has been on display in Italy's South Tyrol
23:18Museum of Archaeology.
23:20Number 1.
23:22The HMS Investigator
23:24In 1848, Sir
23:26John Franklin officially
23:28disappeared. Given his status
23:30as a famous Arctic explorer,
23:32it caused quite the commotion, and
23:34soon, Britain's Arctic Council began
23:36setting up search parties and offering
23:38large sums of reward money in order to
23:40find him. While some clues were found,
23:42it wasn't until July of 2010 that
23:44most of the mystery was solved.
23:46For a bit of context, at around this time,
23:48the British Navy was very much invested in
23:50finding the Northwest Passage.
23:52While it was only fabled to exist,
23:54the hope was that by finding a way to get from
23:56the Atlantic to the Pacific through the
23:58Arctic, shipping between the two oceans
24:00could be far faster. After all,
24:02during this time period, the Panama Canal
24:04didn't exist yet, forcing ships to
24:06sail around the bottom of South America.
24:08Given the fact that this was rather dangerous,
24:10the hope was that a Northwest Passage would
24:12be far safer. The expedition
24:14of Sir John Franklin was one of the
24:16first to be made in order to find this seaway.
24:18In 1845, a 59-year-old
24:20Franklin and his crew embarked
24:22on the journey with their ships, known as
24:24the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.
24:26Right from the get-go, there
24:28were problems. After all, the food was
24:30improperly sealed, leading to much of it
24:32to get contaminated with lead.
24:34And while the crew managed to make it through the winter of
24:361845, in 46,
24:38the boats got stuck in the ice.
24:40While the ships had what should have been
24:42three years of provisions, the contamination
24:44made much of it inedible.
24:46And after two years with no news,
24:48Sir Franklin's wife asked the British Admiralty
24:50to conduct a search.
24:52All the searches didn't come up with much.
24:54Only written evidence to ever be found was
24:56the so-called Victory Point Note.
24:58Written in two parts, it recounted
25:00how the crew spent years trapped in the ice
25:02from 1846 to 1848.
25:04Unfortunately, the second part of the note
25:06recounts that Sir John Franklin passed away
25:08on June 11th of 1847,
25:10and it's believed that this note itself
25:12was written by surviving crew members
25:14as late as 1848. Now, while
25:16all these men were lost for years,
25:18what many historians hoped to find
25:20was the ship itself.
25:22It turns out that for a while, the Inuit
25:24knew the location. These are Canada's
25:26native people who hail from the Arctic,
25:28and in their oral history, they have
25:30stories of how they would use the abandoned ship
25:32as a source of copper and iron.
25:34However, this apparently didn't last for long,
25:36and just after a year, the ship sank into the water,
25:38and from then on, it was unclear where
25:40the exact location was. However,
25:42in July of 2010, this all
25:44changed. That's because it was during this month
25:46that Parks Canada sent a team of
25:48scientists and surveyors to look for
25:50their ship. After breaking the ice on
25:52July 25th, the crew decided to test
25:54their underwater scanner, and in an
25:56incredible stroke of luck, the scanner
25:58happened to find a ship in the scanner's
26:00testing spot. The ship
26:02was neither the Erebus nor the Terror,
26:04rather, it was the HMS Investigator.
26:06This was a ship that went to
26:08look for the Franklin Expedition in
26:101853. However, after getting
26:12stuck in the ice, it subsequently sank to
26:14the bottom. In any case, thanks to the fortunate
26:16find on the first test run, the entire
26:18investigation only took a few minutes, and
26:20from there, the crew were able to spend a good amount of time
26:22taking pictures of the wreckage and assessing it.
26:24From then on, Parks Canada
26:26got emboldened. In 2014,
26:28they managed to find the HMS Erebus,
26:30and in 2016, they found the Terror
26:32using the same technology.
26:34Just this year, excavations began on
26:36HMS Erebus. To date, hundreds of
26:38artifacts have been unearthed. And an
26:40interesting side note, it's also worth mentioning that
26:42this find strengthens Canada's
26:44historical and geographic claim
26:46to the Northwest Passage.
26:48This is because the finding of the ships,
26:50exploring it as far back as the mid-1800s,
26:52makes it clear that British
26:54and now by inheritance, Canadian
26:56ships were in the area far before
26:58the Americans. As such, while America
27:00may periodically try to assert the
27:02Northwest Passage as being theirs,
27:04due to the ownership of Alaska, the reality
27:06is that this is a weak argument
27:08at best, and disingenuous
27:10at worst. Thanks for watching
27:12everyone. I hope to see you next time.
27:14Thank you to our
27:16channel members.