All language subtitles for Secrets in the Ice S02E01 Mystery of the Arctic Shipwreck 1080p WEB h264-KOMPOST_track3_[eng]

[narrator reading]

[narrator] A massive
sunken vessel,

dredged from the depths
of an Arctic bay.

How did one of the most
remarkable sailing ships in the world

end up at the bottom
of a bay in Nunavut?

A new expedition attempts
to solve the infamous mystery

of nine dead
university students.

[Anthony Morgan] Okay, missing
tongues and eyeballs, slashed-up tents.

This is not a mystery,
this is a horror film.

[narrator] An ice age-old
mystery rises to the surface.

[Brooke Guzar] There's
bones on top of bones

arranged in this particular way.

[Alison Leonard] This
is a terrifying image.

What happened here?

[narrator] These are the strangest
mysteries, trapped in the coldest places.

Lost relics.

Forgotten treasures.

Dark secrets.

Locked in their icy tombs
for ages,

but now as ice melts
around the world,

their stories
will finally be exposed.

[narrator] Cambridge Bay,
Nunavut.

This remote and isolated
settlement is tucked high

into the Arctic Circle, just
1,100 miles from the North Pole.

[Michael Robinson] In the wintertime, six
weeks go by without any sunlight at all,

and only for three months
of the year is the bay ice-free.

[narrator] In 2016,
below the bay's icy surface,

a salvage team inspects
a mysterious wooden vessel.

[Meagan McGrath] This thing is
heavy, and not just because it's massive,

its hull is encased in lead, but to
the trained eye, this is a special boat.

Its construction
is pretty unique.

[narrator] Whose ship is this? And how
did it end up on the bottom of a frozen bay

high in the Arctic?

The ship is massive,
118 feet from bow to stern,

40 feet across the beam,

and the hull is wrapped with a layer
of oak, more than two inches thick.

[Anthony Cantor] Oak is highly valued in
shipbuilding because it's strong and durable,

but it's also flexible
and it resists moisture.

But this ship had two extra
inches of oak on the hull,

so that suggests that it was
built for a very specific purpose.

[narrator] The protective layer
of oak is similar to the kind of hull

built for war vessels.

Could this ship have been
sunk in a forgotten battle?

On a wrecked warship, you'd
be looking for cannons, guns

or other types
of military equipment,

but they don't see
anything like that.

[Robinson] Divers searching
the site didn't find any evidence

that it was a warship.

So, then the question is,
what else could it be?

[narrator] The traditional
Inuinnaqtun name for the area

is Iqaluktuttiaq, which
means "good fishing place."

Perhaps this wreck is the
remains of a whaling ship.

And that makes sense.
Before oil and gas,

whale blubber was used for lamp fuel,
for soap, amongst so many other things.

[Cantor] Whalers could have tried
expanding their hunting grounds

to meet the enormous demand
for whale products.

There's just one problem
with this theory.

If this were a whaling vessel,
you'd expect to find

equipment like harpoons,
nets and guns,

and none of that
is present here.

[narrator] The layout
of the ship is also unusual.

A whaling vessel would definitely
be equipped with a compartment

large enough to store the
meat after it was butchered.

This doesn't have
anything like that.

So what was this ship
and what was it doing here?

Determined to solve the mystery,

the salvage team raises
the ship to the surface.

The ship's name has long
since faded from its stern.

[McGrath] But a single word on one of
the deck boards calls out from the past.

Amundsen.

[narrator] Who is Amundsen?

In 1917, in Oslo, Norway,

preparations are underway for
the very first nautical expedition

to the North Pole,
unthinkable at the time.

[Robinson] In the late 19th
century, as people attempted

this expedition and failed, it gave the
quest even greater and greater cachet.

[narrator] There was a very
good reason past quests had failed.

It was solid ice all year round.

You couldn't just sail
to the North Pole.

[narrator] But the Norwegian
explorer leading this new expedition

believes it is possible.

His name is Roald Amundsen.

[McGrath] He was the Neil
Armstrong of the early 20th century.

His life was
the stuff of dreams.

He did things
no one could imagine.

[narrator] In 1905, Amundsen
accomplished a feat of navigation

that had tantalized Europe
for centuries.

He sailed from the Atlantic to the
Pacific through the Northwest Passage.

Six years later, in 1911,
he outdid himself

by successfully reaching
the South Pole.

[McGrath]
His crew followed him,

because the man was
adventurous and a visionary.

[narrator] Now, Amundsen wants
to see if there's land beneath the ice

at the top of the world.

If so, he intends on claiming
it in the name of his patron,

Queen Maud of Norway,

which he believed would
establish his place in history forever.

His goal isn't to avoid the ice,

instead he'll sail
directly into it.

[McGrath] He was following
the latest, greatest science,

in that the Arctic ice
is not some monolith.

It actually flows.

His idea was to sail
to the Arctic,

let his ship get caught
by the ice

so that it would drift
to the North Pole.

It's not unlike
a manned mission to Mars.

You load up your ship
with provisions

and you sit there

until you arrive at your
destination. Hopefully.

[narrator]
But ice is not benign.

It crushes everything
in its path.

[McGrath]
For a project this big,

Amundsen needed a ship of
the most sophisticated design.

He needed a ship
that could withstand

the rigors
of the Arctic ice pack.

[Cantor] Amundsen commissioned
a vessel with a very specific shape,

and he oversaw every aspect
of its construction,

even down to the choice
of wood used.

Norway has huge forests,
but Amundsen imported

what he considered to be
higher quality wood from Holland.

[narrator] The three-masted
schooner had a solid oak frame

for maximum structural strength,

and it was egg-shaped
below the waterline.

So when pressed by ice
from either side,

it would lift the ship up.

It had a four-cylinder,
240-horsepower engine

that drove
a single-bladed screw.

The screw and the rudder
were both retractable.

[McGrath] The ship was named
Maud after the Norwegian queen,

and the ship was christened
with a block of ice.

Rather than
a bottle of champagne.

[narrator] Could this
wreck that's been dredged

from the bottom of Cambridge Bay

be Amundsen's
once-magnificent Maud?

[narrator] Experts
wonder if a vessel salvaged

from the bottom
of an icy bay in Nunavut

could be the long-lost ship of the
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.

At the time it was built,

it was one of the most
sophisticated machines in the world,

and for it to have been forgotten
about and really disappear,

it would be the equivalent of mucking
around in your backyard and finding,

you know, a piece
of a Saturn V rocket.

[McGrath] Right away, when
you look at the salvaged ship,

you can see
that the dimensions fit.

It's about 120 feet long
and 40 feet wide.

But what really clinches it

is the ship's distinct
egg shape.

He knew that
that particular feature

would fortify his ship

against the crushing power
of the Arctic ice pack.

[Robinson]
How did one of the most

remarkable sailing ships
in the world,

owned by the most famous
polar explorer in the world,

end up at the bottom
of a bay in Nunavut,

especially when it was
launched 4,000 miles away

in Oslo, Norway?

[narrator] The Maud set sail
from Oslo in June of 1918.

Amundsen's plan was to
sail over the top of Russia,

across to Alaska,

and then enter the pack
ice north of the Bering Strait.

[Cantor] But the pack ice
was building up earlier

than Amundsen had anticipated.

So the ship's progress was halted
while it was still north of Russia.

[Robinson] It took Amundsen
two years to make it to Alaska.

You could get to Jupiter
in less time.

[Cantor] For Amundsen, this
North Pole expedition was a bust.

And by the time the ship
got back to port in 1925,

it wasn't even his ship anymore.

[narrator] Amundsen was broke.

His creditors seized his assets,
including his beloved Maud,

and she was sold
to the Hudson's Bay Company.

[McGrath]
The Hudson's Bay Company

had a radically
different plan for the Maud.

She became a workhorse,

shuttling between Hudson's
Bay outposts in the far north.

[Cantor] This was
really a bit ridiculous.

It would be like using the
Mars rover as a delivery van.

[narrator] In 1927,

the vessel once known as
Maud arrived in Cambridge Bay

and never left.

[McGrath] Three years
later, she sprung a leak

and sank near Cambridge Bay,

and that's where she lay
for 86 years.

[narrator] In 2016,

the Norwegians decided it
was time to bring Maud home.

[Cantor] This ship was an
important part of Norway's history.

Seafaring is central
to Norway's history,

and Amundsen was
a national hero.

So the Norwegians spend a year
digging out tons of mud

and preparing the ship
for one final voyage.

[narrator] In 2017,

the ship made her way through the
Northwest Passage for the first time.

She's now an exhibit at a museum
dedicated to Amundsen's adventures.

But Norway's most famous son
never made it home.

He disappeared years later, in
1928, on a search and rescue mission

somewhere over the Arctic.

His body has never been found.

[narrator] High in the
wind-torn Russian Ural territory

lies a mountain
called Kholat Syakhl,

which means "Dead Mountain."

The Urals are 800,000 square
miles of cold, rugged mountain terrain.

No surprise it's not
heavily populated.

[McGrath] The backcountry
is so vast and remote

that if something goes wrong,
you're on your own.

[narrator] On a cold,
dark day in February,

500 feet from the top
of the mountain,

an empty tent lies
flapping in the wind.

Inside, a search and rescue
team finds an oddly tidy scene.

Rucksacks, hiking gear and
supplies all neatly arranged,

but it's the tent itself that
sends shivers down their spines.

[McGrath] The main flap
of the tent was closed,

but the tent was slashed
open from the inside.

[narrator] Why would the tent be slashed
from the inside? And not only that...

[McGrath] Equipment is your
lifeline in the backcountry.

It's very strange that they left
and never returned to their tent.

Where did they go?

[narrator] More than a month before
the abandoned tent is discovered,

nine Russian university students,
seven men and two women,

set out on a 200-mile long
cross-country skiing trip.

All of the students
were in excellent shape

and were experienced
in backcountry skiing.

[Morgan] They knew
this wasn't going to be easy,

but they were excited,
this was going to be fun.

I mean, they brought
musical instruments.

They were writing
in their journals.

They were answering
the call to adventure.

[narrator] The group sets off dropping
caches of supplies to lighten the load.

Their plan was to return three
weeks later on February 12th,

but they never showed up.

One day after
the empty tent is found,

searchers make their
first grisly discovery.

About a mile from the tent are
two bodies partially covered in snow,

Yuri Doroshenko
and Yuri Krivonischenko.

[Cantor] This discovery
is really strange.

The two bodies are found huddled together
under a cedar tree near a campfire,

and they're not wearing anything
except their underwear and T-shirts.

[narrator] Shortly afterwards, they
find two more bodies farther up the slope.

It's the expedition leader, Igor
Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova.

Strangely, they too
are both lightly dressed.

[Guzar] That February, the
mountains were punishingly cold,

temperatures dropped to
negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Cantor] What happened to
them that made them move out

into the ice and snow so quickly

that they weren't dressed
at all for these surroundings?

Whatever happened,
happened fast.

[McGrath] Snow, mountains
and a fast-moving danger,

that sounds like they were
running from an avalanche.

[narrator] Searchers analyze the
area where the hikers pitched their tent.

The tent is perched
on a snowy slope.

It's evident that the hikers cut into the
snow to create a flat surface to sleep on.

Could they have inadvertently triggered
an avalanche while building their shelter?

[Cantor]
If there's an avalanche,

you have to move quickly,
so that could be a reason

that they had to get out of their tents
because pausing for even a moment

could leave you crushed
under a mountain of snow.

[McGrath] But there are two
problems with the avalanche theory,

the incline of the hill
and the timing.

[narrator] Searchers observed
that the slope where the tent

was pitched was less
than 30 degrees,

which isn't steep enough
to cause an avalanche.

[McGrath] The timing
doesn't match either.

It's when you disturb a slope
that an avalanche is triggered.

So reasonably, it was when
they were setting up their camp

that an avalanche
would have been caused.

[narrator] And Dyatlov's
camp was fully set up.

It was well-organized,

and the group appears to have
had time to fall asleep.

A sudden avalanche
doesn't seem likely.

And whatever happened to the
rest of the group is still a mystery.

[narrator] On March 5th,
investigators found the body

of one more hiker, Rustem
Slobodin, near the others on the slope,

but there's still four
hikers unaccounted for.

Rumors and conspiracies
begin to swirl.

Why did this group
of experienced hikers

flee their tent and how did
they get separated?

Was the group attacked
by someone?

[narrator] High in the Russian
Ural Mountains,

a search-and-rescue team find five of
nine hikers mysteriously frozen in ice.

Many of them were found
without proper winter clothing.

The condition that the bodies were
found in is probably the most intriguing

and the most confusing and the
most vexing aspect of this mystery.

[narrator] Three months pass
when searchers working farther

down the mountain discover
a fragment of human flesh.

After hours of digging,

the final four bodies are
found at the bottom of a ravine.

[Cantor] These people were dressed
more appropriately for the weather

than the first five bodies
that were discovered.

[narrator] But when medical examiners
take a closer look at the remains,

they make a startling discovery.

Three of the four bodies
had bizarre injuries.

They didn't die from exposure.

They died from severe trauma.

[narrator] Twenty-three-year-old
Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle

died from a massive
skull fracture.

What's really weird about the
head injury is that it seems like

it came from a high-speed impact, the
kind of thing you'd see in a car accident.

[narrator] Semyon Zolotaryov
has multiple broken ribs,

but no sign of bruising
on the outside of his body.

That kind of trauma, you know,
broken bones without bruising,

that's the kind of thing you would
expect to see from an explosion.

[narrator] Lyudmila Dubinina is
found to have severe chest trauma

and many broken ribs.

[Morgan] With all three of these
bodies, their injuries were too severe

for it to be the consequence
of falling into a ravine.

It had to be something
more violent.

[narrator] Strangely, they also find
traces of radiation on their clothing.

Could this have anything
to do with their deaths?

The Soviets had
been known to use

the Ural Mountains
to conduct military tests.

[Cantor] During this
part of the Cold War,

the Soviets were conducting
a lot of secret weapons tests.

We don't always know what they
were testing, we still don't know.

On the night of the incident,
locals observed flashes in the sky,

so that could suggest that they
were testing some kind of explosives.

[narrator] Were the skiers accidentally
killed by their own government?

[Morgan] Aerial explosions could explain
why they would have left their tents

in the middle of the night, and
the concussive force is consistent

with the kinds of bizarre
injuries that we saw.

The shockwave of a bomb can cause
the kind of massive internal damage

and relatively
little external damage

that we saw on Semyon
and Lyudmila's bodies.

[narrator]
But if military weapons tests

had been carried out in this
region, they would have left a trace.

You'd be able to find burns
and damage.

[narrator] The area shows
no signs of explosions,

no shrapnel, bomb wreckage
or damage to the trees.

Adding to the mystery,

medical examinations show
both Semyon Zolotaryov

and Lyudmila Dubinina's eyes
are missing.

Dubinina is also missing
her tongue.

Okay. Missing tongues and
eyeballs, slashed-up tents.

This is not a mystery,
this is a horror film.

[Cantor] All kinds of crazy theories arose
from this incident. Of course they did.

People love to speculate.

And when there's not
a clear explanation,

people can get
really obsessed with it.

[narrator] In February 2019,

a group of Swedish archeologists
hope to solve the mystery once and for all.

They set out to retrace
the exact route

the doomed expedition
took in 1959.

[narrator] Determined
to solve the mystery

of what killed nine university
students on a backcountry skiing trip,

two Swedish archeologists retrace the
exact route the expedition took in 1959.

They set up camp on Dead
Mountain and settle in for the night,

and the extreme weather
they experience at their camp

leads them to explore
a new theory.

[Guzar] Katabatic winds are intense
winds caused by high-density air.

They can occur in Greenland
as well as Antarctica,

and they are known to occur
in the Ural Mountains as well.

[narrator] As air rises
above the mountains,

it cools and becomes denser.

This high-density air
is pulled down slopes

under enormous
gravitational pressure,

causing winds
to reach hurricane speeds.

[Guzar] Katabatic winds can
reach speeds of 190 miles per hour.

That's strong enough
to toss around debris,

and that could possibly account
for the head injury on Nikolay.

[narrator] But some of the
injuries contradict the theory.

The internal damage to
Lyudmila and Semyon's bodies

aren't consistent
with high-speed projectiles.

[man] Here we have a
slope angle which is close to

the one above the tent,
28-29 degrees.

[narrator] But in 2020,

the katabatic wind theory
inspires two Swiss professors

to consider a radical idea.

Radical only because it had
already been dismissed long ago.

Avalanche,
but not just any avalanche

[Guzar] In a photo taken
just before sunset,

you can see the snow
above their tent.

The slope isn't steep enough
to potentially start an avalanche.

It seems like the adventurers
knew what they were doing.

[narrator]
But the professors suggest

that the snow just above
the campsite

was not what it appeared
to be to the hikers.

[Guzar] Instead of being
one hard-packed layer of snow,

there's actually
two distinct layers

that results in
a less stable system.

[narrator] This is known as a
weak layer, which is 80% air.

But then more snow comes down,
forming a denser slab on top.

This allows avalanches to occur
on slopes less than 30 degrees.

[narrator] The scientists
theorize that the katabatic winds

then transported much more
snow down to the campsite.

Eventually, it became too
heavy for the slope to support.

This combination of events
could have triggered

what's now known
as a delayed avalanche.

[Cantor] If the group hadn't cut into
the snow, they would have been fine.

But at a certain point,
a crack could have formed,

causing the snow slab
above the tent to release

and come barreling
right into the tent,

where all nine were asleep.

[McGrath] Despite the terror
they must have felt,

six members of the group
reacted quickly.

They cut the side of the tent,

removing their injured companions
and escaped to the tree line below.

The panic would
have disoriented them,

and it would have been
next to impossible

to find the tent again
in the cold and the dark.

At that point, it's possible, maybe
even likely, that the group split up,

one going to try to find
their cache of food

and the other trying
to go back to the camp,

both unfortunately
succumbing to the cold.

As for the missing eyes
and tongue,

it's possible that animals would
have just scavenged their bodies.

[Cantor] This theory relies
on cutting-edge science,

and a wind-induced avalanche
really could explain

what happened
at the Dyatlov Pass,

but only the nine people there
that night know the full story

and they took that story
to their graves.

[narrator] The Russian Plains,

known for endless frozen
steppes and long, punishing winters.

For thousands of years, this area
was a wasteland of ice and snow.

[Leonard]
During the last ice age,

these plains
would have been cold, stormy,

horrible weather
most of the year-round.

For us, they would have been
an undesirable place to live.

[narrator] And on their western
edge, 300 miles south of Moscow,

an age-old mystery lies buried
in the permafrost.

In 2014, not far
from the city of Voronezh,

a team of Russian archeologists
uncovered something unusual.

An enormous mammoth bone,
but it's not just one.

A few feet below the surface,
they uncovered another bone

and then another
and then another.

[narrator] Eventually,
they uncover a giant circle,

41 feet in diameter, constructed
entirely from mammoth bones.

[Guzar] It's a really
ominous setting.

There's bones on top of bones
arranged in this particular way.

It's eerie.

This is a terrifying image. It makes
you wonder what happened here.

[narrator] Two other mammoth bone
circles have been unearthed in this area.

One in 1951 and another in 1970.

[Leonard] There have been lots of
mammoth bones found in the area.

So in fact,
the place name Kostenki

comes from the term kost,
which means bone.

[narrator]
The first two Kostenki circles

have been dated back
to around 23,000 years ago,

at the tail end of the ice age.

[Elliott] The question is, though, why
are they building with mammoth bones?

But in a treeless, harsh environment,
you use whatever you can find.

So maybe these were
being used like lumber.

[narrator]
The first two circles

were thought
to have been built as shelters

for humans to protect themselves

from the extremely
harsh environment.

The bones are thought to have been
used as the foundation of the shelter,

over which hides
would be stretched.

[Morgan] But this structure
is unusual.

It's completely different
from all the others.

[narrator] Firstly,
it's much bigger.

Archeologists estimate the
site was built using the remains

of at least
64 different mammoths.

The walls would have been
piled 20 inches high

and the circle
is almost 10 feet wider

than any other circles
at Kostenki.

[Morgan] Consider how
many mammoths that is.

They had to hunt each one
of these, drag their bones

all across the land.
It's a lot of work.

[narrator] The average
mammoth was over ten feet tall

and weighed around six tons,

closer in size to modern-day
African elephants.

[Leonard]
The sheer number of bones

that were brought to this
location is truly staggering.

It honestly
is difficult to believe.

[Morgan] It's possible that this new
circle was also a domestic structure,

but that's a pretty big area
to cover without extra support.

I mean, you'd expect to find holes
dug for something to support a roof.

[Elliott] At other sites
in the Ukraine,

we have evidence of skulls
being used more like mooring holes

that perhaps poles were
shoved into the eye sockets

in order to make supports.

[narrator] But at the site
in Kostenki,

researchers don't see
anything like that.

During an ice age, this area is
regularly minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Try living in a house
like that without a roof.

So if it wasn't a dwelling,
what was it?

[narrator] A massive circle
composed of mammoth bones

is discovered
on the central Russian Plains,

raising questions about
what type of ice age structure

they might have been used for.

Determined to find answers, archeologists
go looking for evidence of a fire.

For an archeologist, finding
a fire or a hearth is great.

We can learn so much from plant
remains, charred animal remains,

even just the charcoal.

Not only does this give us
evidence as to what was taking place,

but it can also
provide evidence for dating.

[narrator] Archeologists use a
technique called archeology flotation,

which separates particles by
submerging a sample of soil in water.

[Elliott] The heavier
particles will sink

and the lighter particles
will float and be recovered.

[Leonard] The use of flotation
here was really successful.

It yielded a number
of charcoal remains.

In fact, this is the first time

that any large pieces of charcoal have
been found inside one of these circles.

Finding a small lump of wood
doesn't sound exciting,

but it's important
because it tells us

that there were trees
in the area.

That means that they could have

used those trees
to burn instead.

[narrator] Radiocarbon analysis on
the charcoal remains places the fire

and the construction of the
mammoth circle at around 24,000 BC.

For the archeologists, it's
an astounding development.

That means that this 40-foot
structure is at least 1,000 years older

than the other
two Kostenki bone circles.

[narrator] The coldest and most
severe stage of the last ice age

was passing through this area
around 24,000 years ago,

just as this region
was being settled.

The climate at the time
would have been arid and cold,

not ideal for vegetation.

So the discovery that they
were burning wood suggests

that they were thriving
in this harsh environment.

Most historians will tell you
that people at similar latitudes

would have just given up
by this point,

but these were
some tenacious people,

they weren't ready
to give up that easily.

[narrator] But the 40-foot bone circle
still harbors a significant question.

If early modern humans
weren't living in it,

what else could it
have been used for?

[Leonard] When we see
something of this size,

we ask questions about
power, about status,

perhaps thinking
about ritual sites.

So it is possible that this
represented some kind of special place.

[Elliott] From Stonehenge
to Machu Picchu,

humans all over the world
build incredible monuments.

Is it possible that this
was a ceremonial site?

Usually if something
has ritualistic

kind of importance for groups,
then you'd find carvings,

artwork, something that lets
you know that it's that important.

[narrator] At the more recently
inhabited sites at Kostenki,

archeologists have discovered
carvings made of mammoth tusk,

but they found no evidence of art
or carvings here in the 40-foot circle.

But then they noticed
something strange.

Inside the circle
are more than 300 tiny flakes.

The offcuts and stone debris
created by ancient tool-making.

[Elliott] All those tiny flakes suggest
that tools were being made in this area.

So is it possible that they were
butchering animals here, too?

A lot of the bones they added to
these rings were still pretty fresh,

I mean, they had chunks of
flesh and cartilage on them.

[narrator] Is the large
bone circle an abattoir?

[Morgan] Even if they were hunting
only a few of these mammoths,

each kill is still
a lot of meat.

These things weighed,
like, six tons.

That's a tractor-trailer
full of meat.

These bones and their flesh would
have given off a horrible stench.

They would have
attracted predators.

This requires drying or
preserving the meat in some way.

Humans have long known
that frozen ground

is a great way to preserve food.

[narrator] Is it possible
this was an ice age freezer?

They conclude that the 40-foot
bone circle was likely a place

for preparing the meat
to sustain the community

through yet another frozen year.

I do think it's a story
about resilience and survival

and thriving in an environment

that a lot of people
wouldn't expect

a group of people to thrive in.

[Leonard] Archeologists
are still investigating

the potential uses of the site,

but at heart, the bones
tell a story of survival

in the face of adversity.

[narrator] On the western edge of Antarctica
lies the menacing Thwaites Glacier,

a vast expanse of ice
that is larger than Florida.

The Thwaites Glacier is such a
remote and inaccessible place to get to

that we know more about
the surface of the Moon

than we do about the
environment around this glacier.

[narrator] The glacier may be beyond
the reach of most of human civilization,

but what's happening beneath it

could impact some of
the biggest cities on Earth.

In the early 2000s,

alarm bells at a snow and
ice research lab started ringing.

On the map, large areas of
western Antarctica were turning red,

indicating Thwaites was
rapidly losing ice and heating up.

[MacFerrin] Well, what the
satellites were picking up at Thwaites

was something totally different.

This glacier is waking up
in ways we hadn't seen before.

[narrator] Thwaites appears to be melting
faster than any other glacier in the world.

What's going on in Antarctica?

[Guzar] The ice here
is thousands of feet deep.

It's a huge glacier.

If this were to melt,
it would be chaos.

[Morgan] If Thwaites collapses, we're
looking at a global sea rise of two feet.

But if all of the unstable ice
in western Antarctica melts,

we're looking at 11 feet.

[narrator] In this case, entire
coastal cities could be wiped out.

Why is Thwaites melting so
much faster than any other glacier?

A group of scientists
decide to see for themselves.

[narrator] A group of scientists
are making the trek to Antarctica

to see for themselves why
Thwaites Glacier is melting faster

than any other glacier on Earth.

Working out on
the Thwaites Glacier is risky.

It gets down
to negative 40 or below

and it's covered
with deadly crevasses.

[narrator] From the satellite imagery,
researchers believe the main source of the heat

must be coming from below.

So the only way to find out what is
going on is to look beneath the ice.

[Morgan] The ice
is 4,000 feet thick,

so you can't just
see what's going on,

unless you've got X-ray
vision, which we kind of do.

[narrator] Scientists detonate multiple
half-pound explosives throughout the glacier.

[MacFerrin] They drill
a borehole 100 feet down,

place a small charge
in there, blow it up.

[narrator] The seismic energy
from the explosion

travels down to the bed
of the glacier.

The time it takes to travel
back to the surface

tells them how thick
the glacier is above the rock.

Changes in these seismic waves tell us
about the depth and makeup of this glacier.

More importantly, they
tell us where it's vulnerable.

[narrator]
This massive glacier

is only being held in place by
a small rocky ridge

known as a grounding line,
1,000 feet below sea level.

Wait, is the only
thing keeping Thwaites

from collapsing into the
sea this thin piece of rock?

[narrator] Researchers
need to know the temperature

of the water in front of the peak
to understand how fast it's melting

and determine
just how long it can hold on.

But how do they do that in one of the
most punishing landscapes on the planet?

Scientists recruit
the locals to help them out.

Large Weddell
and southern elephant seals

live year-round
on the ice around Antarctica.

[MacFerrin] The seals
were tagged with sensors

to track water temperature
and salinity.

Each antenna lasts for one
season only and falls off naturally.

[Morgan] This is
legit pretty cool.

I mean, we're using seals to
investigate the guts of a glacier.

How awesome is that?

[narrator] The seals
can dive up to 3,000 feet

into deep water and reach
the trenches on the seafloor.

[MacFerrin] The data confirmed
an unusual phenomenon.

The deeper the seals went,
the warmer the water got.

[Guzar] Even the tiniest
change in water temperature

can drastically affect how
quickly the glacier may melt.

[narrator] But how is the warm
water getting under the glacier?

Researchers deploy
a specialized vehicle

that will allow them to go directly
beneath the Doomsday Glacier.

It's an underwater
robot called Ran,

a 25-foot long, two-ton
autonomous submarine,

able to record high-resolution
sonar and photographic images.

The results are staggering. No
one's ever seen data like this before.

[narrator]
Images from the Ran reveal

there are deep channels in the seabed that
extend like fingers through the glacier.

[Morgan]
These channels are deep.

You could put the Empire
State Building in there

and still have plenty
of room to spare.

And they act like the veins of this
glacier, warming it up from underneath.

[MacFerrin] Because these
channels are so deep and so wide,

they allow more and more
deep water to get

underneath the Thwaites
Glacier and melt it from below.

[narrator]
All the water making contact

with the glacier is more than
three degrees Fahrenheit warmer

than the glacier itself.

[MacFerrin] It's almost like this glacier
was geometrically designed to collapse.

Once you start this process of
collapse, there's very little to stop it.

[narrator] Researchers had thought
collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

might happen within 250 years,

but this new data
may change that.

[Morgan] Let's put this in perspective.
Miami and Boston are gone.

Manhattan is underwater, and access
to electricity for 470 million people

across the world
is seriously threatened.

[Guzar] Life on Earth,
as we know it,

would be significantly
different.

[MacFerrin] This is
an enormous problem,

and whether
we address it or not,

we're going to see the effects
from it one way or the other.