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The wreck of one of the most famous German warships ofWorld War Ihas been located on the seafloor near the Falkland Islands , where it dip in a battle with British warships more than 100 geezerhood ago .
The battlecruiser Scharnhorst drop down on Dec. 8 , 1914 , with more than 800 crewmembers on board , let in German Adm. Maximilian Graf von Spee .
Researchers used two kinds of sonar to detect the wreck of the World War I German battlecruiser Scharnhorst.
The Scharnhorst had tried to extend a naval attack on the Falklands , but the German squadron was surprise by a larger force of British combat ship . During the resulting Battle of the Falkland Islands , the British sank the Scharnhorst along with eight other German warships .
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Using an autonomous underwater fomite ( AUV ) run from the survey shipSeabed Constructor , investigator divulge the wreck yesterday ( Dec. 4 ) about a mile ( 1.6 kilometers ) beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean .
The wreck of the World War I German battlecruiser Scharnhorst was found beneath more than 5,000 feet of seawater near the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
After it was divulge by the AUV ’s echo sounder , the researchers sent down a remotely - operated fomite ( ROV ) to take video recording of the wreck .
" The present moment of discovery was sinful , " maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound , the dispatch drawing card , said in a financial statement . " We are often chase shadows on the seabed , but when the Scharnhorst first come out in the information flow , there was no uncertainty that this was one of the German fleet . "
" We send off down an ROV to explore , and almost straight out , we were into a junk field that state ' struggle , ' " he said . " Suddenly , she just come out of the gloom with great guns thump in every management . "
The Scharnhorst was the flagship of German admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee, who died when it was sunk by British warships in the Battle of the Falkland Islands on Dec. 8, 1914.(Image credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust)
Seafloor search
Searchers started looking for the wreck of the Scharnhorst and otherwarshipsfrom the German squadron in the centenary of the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 2014 , but they were unsuccessful .
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The search resume last calendar month , using four United States Department of State - of - the - art Ocean Infinity AUVs equipped with sonar instruments to research a 1,730 - straight - mile ( 4,500 square kilometre ) orbit of the seafloor near the Falklands .
The remains of the Scharnhorst were found by one of four autonomous underwater vehicles searching the seafloor for the World War I wreck.(Image credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust)
The wreck was find unexpectedly , when the AUV left its hunt path to change by reversal around and rake another line of the seafloor — pass over the Scharnhorst during the twist , Bound suppose . The scientists realized they ’d " found " the wreck only several hr later , when the AUV return to the surface and the data from the search was download and convert into a legible data format , Bound say .
The shipwreck — which lies on the seafloor about 100 maritime miles southeast of Port Stanley , the chapiter of the Falkland Islands — has not been refer or disturbed in any way , and the site will now be lawfully protect , said Donald Lamont , chairman of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust .
Naval battle
The defeat of the Scharnhorst and its warship squadron was a decisive naval fight in the early phase of World War I , according to the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust .
The Battle of the Falkland Islands follow just a few weeks after the Battle of Coronel , off the slide of Chile , when Graf von Spee ’s East Asia Squadron sank two Royal Navy armoured cruisers . More than 1,600 British servicemen were killed in the battle , but only three Germans were wound .
In reply , Britain sent a squadron lead by two advanced battlecruisers , HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible , to the South Atlantic to hunt down for Spee and his warships . A month after their defeat at Coronel , the British war vessel engaged the largest German warship — the Scharnhorst , Gneisenau , Nürnberg and Leipzig .
The wreck of the Scharnhorst was found by an autonomous underwater vehicle in only three days of searching part of the seafloor near the Falkland Islands.(Image credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust)
The Scharnhorst was the first to sink , after suffer lowering damage from the gun of the Invincible and the Inflexible .
More than 2,200 German sailors die during the fight , include Graf von Spee and his two Logos — Heinrich aboard the Gneisenau and Otto aboard the Nürnberg .
The frustration of the East Asia Squadron spelled the end of Germany ’s hopes to overlook the ocean during World War I , and the Imperial German High Seas Fleet was effectively bottle up in the North Sea by the Royal Navy for the rest of the war , according tothe British Library .
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Bound was born in the Falklands , so the discovery of the Scharnhorst has a special meaning . " As a Falkland Islander and a marine archeologist , a discovery of this significance is an unforgettable , poignant moment in my lifetime , " he say .
The hunt team will now look for the relaxation of the German fleet sink in 1914 , to better sympathise the events of the battle and to see to it the site ’s protection , Bound said .
Originally published onLive Science .
