The Titanic May disappear soon
Publish On: 23 Aug, 2019 11:20 AM | Updated |
The Titanic is probably the most infamous maritime disaster known to man and there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t know about it. Much credit for that goes to director James Cameron who made the Blockbuster movie based on the famous shipwreck.
Nearly 15 years from the last time humans visited the RMS Titanic, an international team of deep-sea explorers now returned to the wreck site in the Atlantic Ocean, at a depth of about 12,500 feet (3.8 km).
Over the course of five submersible dives with the DSV Limiting Factor, the team documented the actual conditions of the wreck.The worst decay was seen on the starboard (or right) side of the bow. The captain’s bathtub, often photographed in the past, is gone as part of the deck collapsed.
The Titanic sank in April 1912 after a collision with an iceberg , during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
Only 73 years later, September 1985, the wreck was located about 370 miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland, by a French-American team led by Jean-Louis Michel of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The bow is still largely preserved, even if most superstructures on deck collapsed when the bow hit the seafloor. The impact and water pressure almost completely crushed the stern. A large debris field, from machinery to personal items of the passengers, is found between the stern and the bow.
During the sinking, the Titanic broke apart at its weakest point, between the second and third funnel, where the machine room was located .Apart from the damage done by the sinking, time and microbes are slowly devouring the Titanic.
During the first visit to the wreck in 1985, scientists observed bacteria and fungi colonising the rusty remains . One type of bacteria was an unknown species, appropriately named Halomonos titanicae in 2010.
Oxidising the iron parts, the microorganisms produce energy to sustain their metabolism. The waste products of the microbial metabolism is a thick layer of rust, covering the entire wreck, forming stalactites (called rusticles) along the hull.
Every day, the microorganisms consume almost 100 pounds of iron. The peculiar feeding mechanism causes quickly growing holes in the steel plates of the outer hull . The upper ship’s decks are made from thin steel plates, quickly decaying this part of the ship may collapse in a few years.
The lower parts of the ship’s hull are made of thicker plates. They will likely decay over the next few decades. In the end, the weakened hull will collapse entirely and be buried by sediments, transported by underwater currents.
During an expedition in 2004, some signs of our modern civilization were found on the seafloor. In the debris field, Ballard found plastic cups from passing ships and iron chains or ballast bags of submersibles visiting the wreck.
The submersibles also damaged the wreck, especially the area around the famous staircase. By landing on the ship’s decks, the heavy vehicles bend the weakened steel, causing visible damage to the upper decks.
Also, human activity on the sea surface has impacts on the Titanic. Unsustainable fishing along the Grand Banks of Newfoundland has significantly reduced the local fish population in the last decades.
Fewer fish consume less plankton in the upper layers of the ocean and more organic matter sinks to the bottom of the sea. Here, the surplus of nutrients causes a bloom in the microbial community covering the wreck. A growing microbial community will accelerate the corrosion and decay of the Titanic.
It is highly possible that in a few years the ship would completely disintegrate into the depths of the ocean and the recent changes in the ocean temperatures have escalated the deformation of the vessel. The vessel might disappear eventually from the corrosion and the metal eating microorganisms that surround the entirety of the once magnificent and “unsinkable” ship.
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