Thrilling, vivid details of Titanic wreck

KENT — The Kent Memorial Library provided a chance to travel back in time and relive one of the most famous maritime disasters in the world, the sinking of the Titanic. 

The talk, entitled “S.O.S.: Save Our Sinking Infrastructure,” was held on Sunday, Dec. 7, and served as a fundraiser for the library to update its IT infrastructure. 

It was standing-room only in the Kent School’s engineering building in the center of town as many gathered to hear Paul-Henry Nargeolet, the world’s leading expert on the Titanic wreck site, discuss a brief history of the ship as well as the evolution of underwater exploration at the wreck site.

Nargeolet, formerly a French Navy commander, is director of the Underwater Research Program for RMS Titanic Inc. (the company with salvage rights to the wreck site). He has led numerous expeditions to the Titanic wreck site during which more than 5,000 artifacts have been recovered.

He began his talk by sharing the history of one of the most famous ships and one of the most famous wrecks in history. 

The Titanic was, as most people know, a luxury ocean liner that was destroyed by an iceberg on its maiden voyage in April 1912.

Wreckage and remains

Nargeolet explained that the Titanic was thought, for a long period of time, to have sunk in one piece. Over the years, numerous schemes were put together to raise the wreck, but none succeeded. 

The main problem in discovering the wreck was finding and reaching it, at a depth of more than 12,000 feet (where the water pressure is greater than 6,500 psi). 

But on Sept. 1, 1985, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and IFREMER (a French organization dedicated to sea exploration) discovered the wreck site roughly 13.2 miles from the last coordinates given by Titanic’s radio operators and 715 miles from its destination port of New York City.

The team discovered that the Titanic had in fact split apart while still near or at the surface, before it sank to the ocean floor. The ship had split at the expansion joint that separated the bow and stern. 

The two sections were found roughly a third of a mile apart, in a canyon on the continental shelf off the coast of Newfoundland. The two sections landed on the ocean floor at considerable speed, which caused the bow to crumple and the stern to collapse entirely. 

In the bow, the original interiors remained relatively intact. The much greater level of damage to the stern was probably due to structural damage incurred during the sinking. 

Weakened by the collision with the iceberg, the stern was most likely flattened by the impact when it landed on the ocean floor.

The two sections are surrounded by a debris field measuring roughly 5 by 3 miles. It contains items such as pieces of the ship, furniture, dinnerware and personal items, which fell from the ship during the sinking or were dislodged when the bow and stern landed. The debris field was also the final resting place of a number of the passengers. The bodies and clothes have been consumed by sea creatures and bacteria, although pairs of shoes and boots are still intact to this day.

Since the discovery, RMS Titanic has completed 136 dives to the wreck, recovering 5,849 artifacts. 

These expeditions have been completed over the span of 23 years (1987-2010) using autonomous and remotely operated vehicles. These machines are equipped with advanced sonar and other technologies including robot arms specifically designed to lift and remove artifacts extremely carefully to ensure no further damage is done during the removal process.

Creating a 3-D map

Until 2010, the sole purpose of the dives to the site was the recovery of artifacts. Over time, though, it has become a “mapping project,” exploring the half of the site that had not been examined yet. 

Eventually, there will be a comprehensive map of the entire wreck site. 

To date, roughly 530,000 images have been collected from the site and researchers are beginning to gain a clearer picture of what exactly happened when the ship finally slipped beneath the surface on that fateful April morning. In addition to creating a map and charting the exact physical position of the ship, researchers have also begun to document artifacts discovered within the Titanic that have offered new insights into the details of the sinking.

Scientists have also begun to study the structural integrity of the iron ship, which has been eaten away by microbes. Samples of these microorganisms are helping researchers to better understand the process of the biodeterioration. They are also providing an idea of how much longer the ship will remain intact. The eventual end goal is to create a three-dimensional imaging map of the ship that will be accessible online.