On August 18th, a collaborative team from RMS Titanic Inc., the company that has salvage rights to the wreck of the Titanic, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will be returning to the wreck site not to recover artifacts, but to probe the entire debris field with the eventual goal of creating a 3D virtual rendering of exactly what is left of the ship 2.5 miles under the North Atlantic.
It’ll be the first time the wreck is recorded like an archaeological site instead of explored for salvage booty (and to make the incredibly crappy intro of an incredibly crappy movie out of the underwater footage). The careful mapping will contribute greatly to our understanding of the historical Titanic and will also pinpoint the wreck’s current state of preservation. The plan is to share the virtual rendering with the public once it’s complete.
The “dream team” of archaeologists, oceanographers and other scientists want to get the best assessment yet on the two main sections of the ship, which have been subjected to fierce deep-ocean currents, salt water and intense pressure.
Gallo said while the rate of Titanic’s deterioration is not known, the expedition approaches the mission with a sense of urgency.
“We see places where it looks like the upper decks are getting thin, the walls are thin, the ceilings may be collapsing a bit,” he said. “We hear all these anecdotal things about the ship is rusting away, it’s collapsing on itself. No one really knows.”
The expedition will use imaging technology and sonar devices that never have been used before on the Titanic wreck and to probe nearly a century of sediment in the debris field to seek a full inventory of the ship’s artifacts.
“We’re actually treating it like a crime scene,” Gallo said. “We want to know what’s out there in that debris field, what the stern and the bow are looking like.”
The expedition will be based on the RV Jean Charcot, a 250-foot research vessel with a crew of 20. Three submersibles and the latest sonar, acoustic and filming technology will also be part of the expedition.
They will also take samples of the iron hull, which they hope will answer some questions about how the ship went down. The 3D mapping of the debris field will also provide new information about what happened the night of April 14, 1912. Scientists will be able to examine in detail parts of the ship that haven’t been seen before because they’re jammed into the mud on the seafloor.
The pictures the team retrieves from the submarines will be compared to the pictures taken on RMS Titanic’s first expedition to the wreck 25 years ago. They’ll be able to gauge the rate of decay over that period, and continue to gather data that might be key to conservation on future mapping expeditions.
RMS Titanic, Inc., is still working on a website dedicated to the expedition, but they already have a Facebook page up where you can ask questions and follow the expedition.
Thank you. I have no idea why this entry has inspired so many fans of the film to post their one-note thoughts. The wreck and the film are two different things, folks. This entry is about the former.
yeah the movie its sad but cool in a way. 😆
i love this move but it is such a sad movi
im sorry sir but do u just come onn this sit to bother other people and tell them what they should and should night say i say that even if u have studyed THE TITANIC…other then that all because you had a family member on the boat doesnt make you and expert on the Titanic or gives u the right to be mean to others on the site that just want to say what they think because this is a free country and people have the right to say what they want and you r no expert because there maybe still some hidden treasures of the Titanic not known yet.
I <3 the titanic i wish it did sunk they said it was unsunkable omg <3 titanic i wish i was one it not when i sunk i love the moive
by amielee
😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎 its amazing i wanna lerm moreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Your Comment is unbelievable… How can you say that the Titanic is such a thing! It is one of the most amazing pieces of artifacts that man could ever find! Hundreds of innocent people died on that ship and you have the nerve to call it that! You are the worst human being I have ever laid eyes on such a comment! I hope your selfishness comes you bite back at you in life because you have just made a complete ass out of yourself!
to be an expert on the titanic would take around 1 week to get it all. Its isnt that big of a story, Yes sad and shocking and i feel for those poor soles.
But to be quite honest its a simple toopic that would take buggar all to be an expert on
Puting a huge steel boat on the water and then saying its an “unsinkable” vessel
Defies all logic doesnt it.
I dont think any other propaganda commercial advertising has come unstauck so quickly and so tragically.
The have never used the words “unsinkable” on any vessel to date. Dont blame them either hay.
By the way the old Black and white movie was so much better and gave a great feel about how horrible it must have been. So many people her ein Australia cannot fathom how cold that water was. We whinge if the water is only 19 degree centregrade.. ou remeber how cool it was when they finally found it at the bottom of the sea. No one really beleived it but there she was.
OK, i will go away and leave you alone now
i LOVE ROSE IN TITANIC!!!
I FEEL BAD 🙁
omg the titanic is so cool who is an idiot not to belive that its like the king and the qween is the qween mary
yhe titanic rocks
NOT END OF THE STORY,
BY
TR,Selvakumar
god,by
:skull: :skull:
Idont get it dont answer
im sorry
😆 i dont know wat to say ps i got the titanic necklce haha :p :boogie:
My opinon on the R.M.S titanic, and thanks for the info.
People dont see the dimond in the ruff ,becuase its at the bottom of the ocean. Thats why i see the R.M.S Titanic,as a modern day Atlantis. It would be astonishing to see live memory, to an unforgiving tragdy.
I’ve lived and worked out in the Atlantic, I know how unforgiving she can be. much love and respect for those in her grasp.
My opinon on the R.M.S titanic, and thanks for the info.
People dont see the dimond in the ruff ,becuase its at the bottom of the ocean. Thats why i see the R.M.S Titanic,as a modern day Atlantis. It would be astonishing to see live memory, to an unforgiving tragdy.
I’ve lived and worked out in the Atlantic, I know how unforgiving she can be. much love and respect for those in her grasp.
.
Stupid titanic piece of shit crappest boat ever
Jesus, why are there so many people who write like a bunch of two-year olds? And why all the negativity?
One question though to the last comment by St. Dutch:
How in the world is it “like Atlantis?” Atlantis is completely fictional. It never existed.
Anyway, excellent article once again, Livius! I am honored to say that I knew my great-grandmother who came over from Italy. She was born in 1899, and died in 2002 at the ripe-old age of 102. I was 18 when she died. As a history buff, it is amazing to think of all the things she must have seen and experienced throughout the 20th century.
She was a passenger on the Titanic, and obviously was one of the survivors. Her father….my great-great-grandfather….went down with the ship.
One of the things she told me about a memory she had, was of the grand staircase and how magnificent it was to an 11 year-old girl born on the cusp of poverty in the streets outside Rome.
As for the movie, it gave me chills. Especially the bit where they showed the ship’s band playing while it was sinking. That was one story she told everyone later in life. She ran past the band on the ship, to get to the life boats. Seeing the 1998 version of Titanic when it first came out in theaters, was probably one of the craziest things I have seen in any movie. Simply because I was sitting right next to someone who witnessed that very scene, in real life! It was almost like seeing a ghost or something. I swear, the hairs on my body stood straight up.
One thing I disagree with you on Livius, was the quality of the movie. You said it was a terrible movie, but I dunno. I thought it was good.
Anyway, back to my great-grandmother: As I was saying, some of the things she got to experience as she grew up and lived her life throughout the the entire 20th century, is pretty crazy. She married at the age of 17, in 1916. Her husband was 21 at the time, and was sent off to fight in the trenches of WWI soon after.
By the time she was 23, she graduated from nursing school in 1922. Her and her husband enjoyed the good life throughout the Roaring Twenties, often going to the beach or to NYC. They fared pretty well throughout the Great Depression, as her job was still pretty vital as a nurse. While everyone else was out of work, including her husband, my great-grandfather, she was able to hold down her job. (It was rare for women to work to begin with. But a woman with a job while her husband couldn’t find work…well…you could imagine the way they were treated by some of their neighbors. She told me all about how nasty people can get when they are desperate. Especially towards a couple of Italian immigrants.)
America entered war once again in 1941, as you well know. Once again, my great-grandfather went off to war, as he was still only 45 or 46 years old. She was 42, and went off to Europe as well as a nurse, working pretty close to the front lines. She could hear the fighting pretty well most days!
My grandfather….their son…also went off to fight in WWII as a tail-gunner in the Air Force in 1943. He flew his 50 missions, and was wounded in the neck on his final mission. He was about 20 years old when he finally got home from the war in 1945. In fact, his parents came home just weeks after he did. His younger brothers, my great-uncles, went off to Europe after the war when they came of age.
After the war, things finally settled down for them for the rest of their lives.
While they sympathized with the Civil Rights movement throughout the 60s and 70s, they were getting a bit too old to be politically involved, though my great-grandmother wanted to anyway. The least she could do was vote for Democrats, since they were the party that traditionally supports equality of the races. (Remember, she was an Italian immigrant that traveled to this country in 1912. She has seen first-hand her fair-share of racism and bigotry.) Incidentally, she could only for LBJ as President, and much to her delight, he won. Unfortunately, he escalated the war in Vietnam, which one cause for much unrest throughout the country. Her youngest son was a draft-dodger, as well as was two of her grandsons. Her son was arrested and thrown in jail, but they never came after my uncles.
In any case, asI have said, she was not all that politically involved. She did, however, make the trip down to DC and was lucky enough to be there for Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. She said that was one of the most moving moments of her entire life. A life that was already full of some pretty spectacular moments. And she still had 1/4 of her life yet to go!
Her own husband died shortly after their trip to DC, and had to see her grandson (my father) go off to Germany to serve in the Air Force a week after her husband’s funeral. My dad served in the Air Force for 8 years, came home, and got married. They eventually ended up with 5 kids. My older brother, an older sister, myself and my twin brother, and a younger sister.
By 1986, when the youngest of my cousins was born, my great-grandmother had 6 children, 15 grand-children, and 48 great-grandchildren! She then decided to live long enough to see 4 great-great-grandchildren! My older brother had 2 kids. One in 1997, and another in 1999. My older sister had twins born in June 2002, just before my great-grandmother died. We were able to take the twins to her death-bed, and she was able to lay her old eyes on those two. But back to this in a second.
The last significant world event she witnessed was the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center while she was in the hospital. She said of the event: “It seems as though humanity has not learned a thing over the past 100 years that I have been alive.”
What a striking contrast to the final thing she would ever see: Twins that were her 3rd and 4th Great-great-grandchildren a little under 10 months later. It was the happiest, saddest, and strangest day of my life: Seeing those old-old eyes of hers….eyes that have seen things that I can only imagine over the course of human-kind’s most momentous century…looking at a couple of new-born babies that are my niece and nephew. Eyes that have seen the sinking of a great ship; the most famous sinking in human history. Eyes that have seen a great deal of death and destruction. Eyes that have seen the cause of freedom being fought and won the world over for ten decades. Eyes that were able to see new life be re-born once again, for the final time before they closed…forever.
I am in complete and total awe of your great-grandmother, Mike. What an amazing life she led, and your tribute to her is nothing short of beautiful. You should write a biography. Seriously. Track down all the pictures, letters, documents you can find, interview all relatives who knew her and start writing it down. I’ll be the first in line to buy a copy.
Thank you for your kind words, Livius. (And sorry for kepe bringing up old posts. I truly am enjoying reading your blog, trying to catch up to date.)
Incidentally, I have started writing a biography. Been in the works for the better part of 10 years now. I started writing it my senior year of high school, and have been working on it off and on since then. Most of the above are excepts from what I have already written. I have a lot of direct quotes from her and from my grandmother. Several times I have sat down with the two of them together with my older brother, my father, and my twin brother in order to find out more about our family history before it would be lost forever. Afterall, she knew her own grandfather, who was 20 years before the American Civil War even took place! (He would be my….great-great-great-great grandfather? 😮 )
We have pages and pages of notes that we each wrote separately for each “meeting” with her back in the 90s.
It was only during my senior year and later that I decided to get the notes from my brothers and my father, and began to compile them into something a little more coherent. I was even able to track down a copy of the passenger manifest with the names of her parents and herself listed on it, with a photograph of when she was a younger child, her brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, and grandparents back in Italy. She listed the names of each person, and their relations to her. They told us a bit about each person’s personalities. What they were like. What they enjoyed doing. Right down to what each person liked (and disliked!) to eat. So there is also quite a bit of humor as well.
Anyway, I apologize of “talking” your ear off. You got me excited (and inspired) enough to begin working on that biography once again. I shall have to figure out a way to get published should I ever complete this work, and you shall be the first to know. Assuming you are still blogging for perhaps a few more years to come, of course!
😎
I am working on a project that includes the titanic. I think it is great so far. To Mike M. are you a writer? :boogie: :giggle:
lol, nah, but I thought about doing it many times. I would frequently try, lose patience, and quit. I’m afraid I don’t think I am eloquent enough to write.
In my own opinion, They should at least take some pieces or whatever from Titanic and Display it in a Museum.
:angry: Titanic is not a Piece of Shit. You just don’t appreciate History. :no:
Piece of shit? Who called it a “piece of shit?”
:skull: TITANIC is a graveyard.
Grave robbers should realize this and they
should leave.
If I died on the great ship TITANIC and found
out someone wanted to raise it or was grave
robbing it I would use my dead powers to
scare them away for life.
Give em a good scare–there’s no reason
to bring it up or rob it, it’s a grave
site, realize that and leave it alone!
are you stupid?
it’s a grave site people have died in
and around her, so there’s no reason to
bring it up just cause you feel bad about
it rotting away.
anyway if they did bring it up it would
just fall apart anyway cause it’s so old
it belongs in the ocean, that’s it’s
home now, and it has no plans on leaving.
but keep being a fan!