The legendary Titanic liner, which sank more than a century ago at the bottom of the Atlantic, gradually disappears. New data from an expedition that has recently explored the disaster place indicates that the construction of the vessel is destroyed by a rapid pace, turning into underwater debris.
New Titanic pictures were taken this summer by US company RMS Titanic Inc., which has the right to work with the wreckage of the legendary liner.
The photos obtained show how the leiner's remains have changed over 100 years underwater.
The Titanic sank in 1912, faced with the iceberg, resulting in killed 1.5 thousand people.
The authors of the study believe that handrails approximately 4.5 m have collapsed over the last two years.
"At some point, the metal could not withstand, and they fell," says Tomasina Ray of RMS Titanic Inc.
This is a clear evidence of how extreme conditions of the ocean depths destroy the remains of the world's most famous vessel.
Ocean pressure, underwater currents on the seabed and bacteria lead to the destruction of the structure. In this case, the Titanic itself has a wonderful impact on the oceanic environment.
Titanic under water pressure
During flooding, the Titanic split into two parts - nasal and fodder, which found themselves at the seabed at a distance of almost 600 m from each other. The feed part fell to the bottom immediately, and the nasal was gradually immersed.
After the accident, many objects and fragments of the corps were scattered along the sea floor. Most of the forage part of the Titanic: from tons of coal to suitcases, clothing, wine bottles, washbasins, cups, mirrors and many other personal belongings.
The fragmentation field also contains numerous fragments of the vessel itself, with the largest of them located near partially destroyed fodder.
On the seabed, the Titanic undergoes pressure of water in about 40 MPa, which is 390 times more than on the surface.
Now it is destroyed by its own giant weight. As 52,000 tons of steel settle to the bottom of the ocean, they press on the steel body, tearing the ship into parts. During previous studies, scientists noticed large cracks and faults in the steel plates of the body.
Photo author, Charles Pellegrino
"The sign silhouette of the sunken liner will gradually change from year to year - and not in his favor," explains Gerhard Zafert, the head of the expedition of 2022, which created the first full digital model "Titanic".
According to Zaffer, corrosion gradually weakens the skeleton of the vessel, as steel plates, beams and other supporting elements become thinner.
Like the Titanic rust
Like any other steel structure, the Titanic rust.
At a depth of 3.8 km, other processes occur than on land, where rust is formed from the interaction of oxygen, iron and water. The "Titanic" of the same corrosion is caused by bacteria.
The vessel is covered with biofilm - a living covers of bacteria, marine fungi and other germs that feed on its debris. Initially, organic materials, such as upholstery, pillows, towels and furniture, served as a rich source of nutrients for germs that are drifting in the ocean depths.
But then other, more extreme microorganisms settled on the ship, which may have got there from the seabed or came from distant hydrothermal springs of the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Titanic metal parts gradually absorb germs, which leads to the appearance of special stalactites from rust.
"There is a more life on Titanics now than when it sailed the ocean surface," says Lori Johnston, an ecology that explores microorganisms. Lori has already descended the liner six times.
These "rusty" (from the words "rust" and "stalactites") are products of vital activity of bacteria that oxidize the metal they eat.
Gravity causes the acid fluid to drain and form whole branches of rust.
"Rusty unique, because there, at depth, they are dominant species," says Johnston.
Photo author, anthony el-khouri
One of these bacteria - Halomonas Titanicae - is an unknown species. This bacterium receives energy by consuming rust produced by other germs or even chemical reactions in water.
Bacteria also penetrated into places devoid of oxygen, for example, into microscopic cracks formed during compression of the structure. They produce sulfur, which in seawater turns into sulfuric acid, and then corrodes the vessel, forcing it to release iron for consumption by other germs.
The feed part of the vessel received more damage from the outset, so it collapsed 40 years faster than the nasal part, explains Anthony El Guri, a microbiologist from Eastern Florida College, who worked with the Canadian director and ocean depth researcher James Kemeron.
Life on the wreckage of the titanic
"Titanic fragments behave, in fact, as a large iron oasis on the seabed on the sea weighing 46,000 tons," says El Houri.
"This oasis creates a nutrient medium for a bright deep -sea reef, inhabited by sea stars, anemones, glass sponges, corals and sea cucumbers. And, of course, colonies of reinforcement," he says.
El Houri and his colleagues found that these bacteria not only eat iron on "Titanic", but also "capable of breathing" instead of oxygen. "It is a wonderful ecosystem far from the sun, and it can tell you what extramophils (living organisms that can survive and prosper in extreme conditions. - Ed. ) We can find outside the Earth," he says.
Titanic also affects the sea floor. Rust streams spread from the sunken vessel at a speed of about 10 cm per year and penetrate the sedimentary rocks to a depth of up to 15 cm. These streams are especially concentrated around the feed part of the housing.
Photo credit: Getty Images
In general, according to scientists, Titanic loses from 0.13 to 0.2 tons of iron from its rust formations daily.
According to some estimates, iron in the nasal of the ship can completely dissolve in 280-420 years.
How much more is the titanic
Studies of deposits, as well as the movement of squid around the sunken vessel, have made it possible to understand how the underwater currents move "Titanic".
None of these trends are considered particularly strong, but they can create fluctuations that will lead to the destruction of the sunken vessel.
"Even the flows from the submarines can lead to the collapse of weak structures," Bafert explains.
There is also a probability that these trends are in the rest of the Titanic fragments in sedimentary rocks before they have time to completely collapse.
The question is constantly - how many more is the Titanic?
"We do not know the answers, but we can trace what is happening in real time," says Thomas Ray with RMS Titanic Inc.
The authors of the study believe that handrails approximately 4.5 m have collapsed over the last two years.
The immersion, which was carried out by the researcher Viktor Veskovo, found the destruction of officers in the right part of the vessel, the destruction of the salon and some premises, such as the captain bathroom.
"According to my estimates, the most iconic areas, such as the FEE, radio, officer's cabin, will disappear in about 2100, which will make the landing of the submarines aboard Titanic more complicated," says El Khouri. "The thinner steel is destroyed faster, such as bolts and felling on the deck of the ship. But even at such a speed of decay, the liner will take several centuries to completely disappear."
El Houri estimates, large pieces of steel, buried in sedimentary rocks and protected from the destructive effects of metal that corrode metal can last longer-perhaps several hundred years.
"Porcelain objects, for example, a bright tile of burnt quartz in Turkish baths will stand almost forever," El Houri assures.
It will be a rather modest monument to one of the most tragic examples of arrogance and human weakness. And, perhaps, it will be a quiet end of the vessel, which has so much suffering.
