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Ever since the 1997 movie Titanic, pretty much all anyone wants to know about the ship is why Rose wouldn’t just let Jack on that damn door she was on so he didn’t have to die?!
However, now that the film’s director James Cameron and two of the film’s stars, Billy Zane and Leonardo DiCaprio, have all weighed in and still no consensus has been reached, the world can go back to learning more about the behemoth of a ship that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912, killing more than 1,500 passengers.
For the first time in 14 years, divers revisited the RMS Titanic wreckage and what they found was that parts of the 107-year-old “unsinkable” ship were still in pretty good shape, while other areas were undergoing significant erosion and decomposition.
The deterioration of the wreckage, located 12,500-feet below the sea 370 miles south of Newfoundland, was discovered to be the worst on the starboard side of the ship.
The the hull is starting to collapse, the officers’ quarters are deteriorating, and the lounge roof of the bow section appears to be the next area that will be greatly affected by the freezing cold sea currents, salt corrosion, and metal-eating bacteria.
“The future of the wreck is going to continue to deteriorate over time, it’s a natural process,” expedition scientist Lori Johnson USA Today. “These are natural types of bacteria, so the reason that the deterioration process ends up being quite a bit faster, is a group of bacteria, a community working symbiotically to eat, if you will, the iron and the sulphur.”
“The most fascinating aspect was seeing how the Titanic is being consumed by the ocean and returning to its elemental form while providing refuge for a remarkably diverse number of animals,” said Triton Submarines President Patrick Lahey.
The amazing footage of the Titanic taken for the first time in 4K will be used for a future National Geographic documentary.
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“The most shocking area of deterioration was the starboard side of the officers’ quarters, where the captain’s quarters were,” said Titanic historian Parks Stephenson. “Captain’s bath tub is a favourite image among the Titanic enthusiasts, and that’s now gone. That whole deck hole on that side is collapsing taking with it the state rooms, and the deterioration is going to continue advancing.”
Scientists are studying the footage and computer imagery to better understand how different types of metal erode in the deep Atlantic waters, to learn more about the creatures living on the ship, and to determine how much longer they believe the Titanic will still be around.
Before leaving the site, the explorers laid a wreath at the site and held a small ceremony to honor the over 1,500 people lost in the historic accident.