RMS Titanic Research Articles

Mesoscale ocean eddies determine dispersal and connectivity of corals at the RMS Titanic wreck site

The sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912 remains one of most iconic maritime disasters in history. Today, the wreck site lies in waters 3800 m deep approximately 690 km south southeast of Newfoundland, Atlantic Canada. The wreck and debris field have been colonized by many marine organisms including the octocoral Chrysogorgia agassizii. Because of the rapid deterioration of the Titanic and the vulnerability of natural deep-sea coral populations to environmental changes, it is vital to understand the role the Titanic as well as other such structures could play in connecting ecosystems along the North American slope. Based on Lagrangian experiments with more than one million virtual particles and different scenarios for larval behavior, given the uncertainties around the biology of chrysogorgiids, the dispersal of larvae spawned at the Titanic wreck is studied in a high-resolution numerical ocean model. While the large-scale bathymetry shields the Titanic from a strong mean flow, mesoscale ocean eddies can considerably affect the deep circulation and cause a significant speed up, or also a reversal, of the circulation. As a consequence, the position of upper and mid-ocean eddies in the model largely controls the direction and distance of larval dispersal, with the impact of eddies outweighing the importance of active larval swimming in our experiments. Although dependent on larval buoyancy and longevity, we find that the Titanic could be reached by larvae spawned on the upper slope east of the Grand Banks. Therefore, the Titanic could act as a stepping stone connecting the upper to the deep continental slope off Newfoundland. From the Titanic, larvae then spread into deep Canadian waters and areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Rusticle magnetotaxis elucidating Rustflower formations in RMS Titanic's Turkish Baths

During his bio-archaeological Last Mysteries of the Titanic expedition in 2005, explorer James Cameron observed the RMS Titanic's Turkish Baths, an anoxic chamber secluded from currents deep within the wreck's remote interior, utilizing the ROV Skipper. There, Cameron discovered anomalously thin, vertical, and bifurcating rusticle formations he termed “Rustflowers.” Proposing magnetotaxis as the involved mechanism, this study analyzed rusticles salvaged from Titanic's #8 davit bitt utilizing ferromagnetic resonance, which demonstrated an asymmetric spectrum featuring prominent uniaxial over magnetocrystalline anisotropy fields of Buni = 110 mT and Bcub = −23 mT, linewidth parameters of ΔB = 200 mT, ΔBFWHM = 144 mT, ΔBhigh = 37 mT, ΔBlow = 107 mT, and asymmetry ratio of A = 0.35, and α = 0.20. These represent the established signature of biogenic magnetofossil chains synthesized by former magnetotactic bacteria, enduring within the rusticle cortex. Electron microscopy and chemical analysis identified single-domain range magnetite nanocrystals, and crystalline elemental sulfur inclusions, respectively. Chemosynthetic microbial iron oxy-hydroxide accretions guided upward along geomagnetic field lines by north-seeking magnetotaxis, under reducing conditions exhibited in Titanic's Turkish Baths, may account for the distinctive morphology of its Rustflowers; adding dimension to the bacterial application of iron assimilated from deep-sea sources, including shipwrecks.

Opening the Public Accessibility to the Wreckage of the RMS Titanic: Some Ethical Reflections

In 2021, Ocean Gate Expeditions allowed people to visit the remains of the RMS Titanic. While this is not the first time that the site has been accessed for touristic aims, this case has, once again, opened the debate about the ethics of such experiences. The key dilemma is if permitting the public access to a natural graveyard, such as the wreck of the Titanic, should be considered as an acceptable practice or an immoral act that must be banned. Notwithstanding the sensitive arguments raised against the organization of similar initiatives, the visit to the RMS Titanic seems to be a valuable and legitimate practice according to diverse ethical approaches.

Cover Picture: Materials and Corrosion. 07/2021

Cover: Since the RMS Titanic, rusticles have been a mystery often attributed to deep‐sea bacteria feeding on the ship's iron. We propose another mechanism. The process initiates with coating or surface defects followed by localised corrosion. This localized corrosion is enhanced by deep‐seawater chemistry and hydrostatic pressure, which also increases the iron oxide porosity. Rusticle growth patterns over the shipwrecks indicate that water‐saturated areas are more prone to rusticle formation.More detailed information can be found in: Lina Marcela Silva‐Bedoya, Elizabeth Watkin, Laura L. Machuca, Deep‐Sea Corrosion Rusticles from Iron‐Hulled Shipwrecks, Materials and Corrosion 2021, 72, 1138.

Report on 7th ME Salon - Lessons from the Past-Diffusion of Technological Innovation Learned from RMS TITANIC Propulsion System

Report on 7th ME Salon - Lessons from the Past-Diffusion of Technological Innovation Learned from RMS TITANIC Propulsion System

Intact Stability of Historic Passenger Ships in Light of the Second Generation Intact Stability Criteria

The paper examines the intact stability of historic passenger ships from the point of view of the contemporary notion of the intact stability, i.e. the Second Generation Intact Stability Criteria (SGISC) framework. An intact stability assessment using the Vulnerability Level 2 calculation procedures of SGISC for the dead ship condition was performed on four ocean liners: RMS Titanic, RMS Queen Mary, SS United States and SS Michelangelo, and two cruise ships: MS Song of America and MS Costa Concordia. In addition, the intact stability of the selected ships was appraised using the present-day mandatory intact stability requirements contained in the 2008 Intact Stability Code. The selected ships are believed to be good representatives of the main trends in passenger ship design over a one-hundred-year span bounded by two well-known maritime catastrophes: the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the Costa Concordia disaster in 2012. The paper offers an insight into how major design changes have affected the intact stability properties of passenger ships over this period. It was found that the examined ocean liners would perform well in terms of intact stability in the dead ship condition even from the point of view of the SGISC. The analysis also confirmed the advantages of the approach using the SGISC framework over simplified, (semi)empirical stability assessment methods. By looking into the evolution of the intact stability of ocean liners and cruise ships from the contemporary perspective, the paper draws the conclusions which are considered useful for the design of future passenger ships.

MEĐUNARODNOPRAVNA ZAŠTITA KULTURNE BAŠTINE DUBOKOG PODMORJA – IMA LI SPASA “TITANICU”?

The paper aims to demonstrate that contemporary international law has solutions to offer when it comes to protecting the cultural heritage in maritime areas beyond national jurisdiction, i.e. in the International Seabed Area. In this context, the author also specifically considers issues regarding the protection of RMS Titanic’s wreck, as a cultural heritage site significant to the whole of humankind. In the first part, the paper analyses the rules of international law applicable to the protection and preservation of cultural objects in the International Seabed Area. The analysis commences with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which only partially regulated the protection of the underwater cultural heritage. In addition, the paper researches in detail into the international legal mechanisms as provided for by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. Finally, the author examines the possibility of applying the protection regime according to the UNESCO Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The second part of the paper focuses on the international legal situation regarding the protection of Titanic’s wreck. Besides analysing the most important provisions of the special 2003 Agreement concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel RMS Titanic, which is not yet in force, the author reviews the prospects of applying the universal conventions discussed in the first part of the paper and also seeks to assess the effectiveness of the mechanisms at hand in assuring the protection of this valuable cultural object.

Titanic incident in 1912

History column of the EMC Magazine has published two previous articles on the RMS Titanic. first was in Volume 1, No. 2, 2nd Quarter 2012 and was titled, The Titanic and Radio Frequency Interference. second one was in Volume 5, No. 1, 1st Quarter 2016 and was titled, Titanic, Marconi's ‘Wireless Telegraphers’ and the U. S. Radio Act of 1912.

Multiple product qualities in monopoly: Sailing the RMS Titanic into the economics classroom

ABSTRACTIn this pedagogical contribution the authors extend the traditional three-class tariff employed in the French passenger railway system with the more resonant story of the service quality variations associated with the three passenger classes of the ill-fated RMS Titanic. In doing so, they provide economics instructors with an opportunity to integrate the well-known motion picture Titanic (Cameron and Landau 1997) into the teaching of economics. This article provides instructors with resources that can be used to link historical and modern travel examples of price discrimination in order for students to reach a “deeper understanding of course concepts” (Salemi 2002, 725).

A Calculus of Loss and Gain

A Calculus of Loss and Gain Maggie Trapp On Amina Gautier's The Loss of All Lost Things In her short story collection, The Loss of All Lost Things, Amina Gautier exposes small scenes of misunderstanding and shares with us moments of connection. In these stories Gautier probes the inner lives of characters lost and searching, characters attempting to forge bonds, seeking redemption, and looking for answers. In "Navigator of Culture," we witness daughters and mothers, girls and women, as they work to understand each other in a world where fathers and men are absent. In "Most Honest," we watch as a recently divorced man yearns for the family he's lost even as he fails to understand or accept his own part in his losses. In "A Cup of My Time," we enter the world of a pregnant woman who has been told she might lose a child. This is a short, spare story whose most memorable character seems to be a mere bit player—the pregnant woman's landlord and neighbor, Mrs. Majumdar, who comes over to borrow this and that and whose impact on the narrator, as well as the reader, is profound in surprising ways. In the title story, "The Loss of All Lost Things," we are presented with a catalogue of what seems to be loss without end, loss that defines who we are and what we do. While the parents in this story are coming to terms with the fact that their young son is missing, they initiate a grief-inflected meditation on loss in general, offering up a mental calculation of sorts that, while seemingly infinite in scope, can never account for the despair of each individual loss: They are not the first to suffer loss. They try to keep it all in perspective, to think of the myriad things that have been lost. Such as: The Ark of the Covenant. The city of Atlantis. The Dead Sea Scrolls. El Dorado. The Holy Grail. Amelia Earhart, somewhere over the Pacific. Pompeii, buried beneath volcanic ash. The RMS Titanic, at the bottom of the sea. Other lost things are lost slowly, over time, rather than in one fell swoop. Such as: Loss of feeling, of limb and life. Loss of blood. Loss of memory. Loss of looks, of faith and time. Loss of sanity. Teeth lost under the pillow. Long-lost relatives—ignored, forgotten, and pretended away. They make these lists to humble themselves, remembering the way their parents attempted to cure picky eating habits with reminders of children starving in Africa, but the shaming tactic doesn't work. Try as they might to think of others who have it worse, all that they can think of is themselves. These parents invoke a limitless loss to in some way reckon their own monumental loss, which of course they can never do. Gautier's prose here is almost prosody. She manages to step back from the particulars of this one story to offer a lyrical listing that speaks to each of us. As with any good fiction, these stories are more than the sum of their parts. We witness characters lose what they love or question their long-held attachments, [End Page 1] but at the same time these stories touch us in ways that can't be summed up or paraphrased. In this collection what's left unsaid is often incredibly evocative, but there are a few times when the stories say too much, when Gautier could offer more nuance, more telling moments rather than spelling things out for us. Some of the stories are uneven, moving from lyrical and layered moments to more pedestrian prose that drops us out of the story's spell. In "Navigator of Culture" we read, "Holding a can of pear halves, she eyes me with pity and condescension. 'For your own self-respect, Hazel, please tell me you're not here to fulfill some sort of nostalgic wish to get your hair done like you used to when you were a little girl.'" It doesn't seem natural that a young woman would, in an otherwise fairly restrained conversation, suddenly offer such trenchant psychologizing. This moment would have...

Review: Rusticle Formation on the RMS Titanic and the Potential Influence of Oceanography

Meter length iron-rich rusticles on the RMS Titanic contain bacteria that reportedly mobilize iron from the ship structure at a rate that will reduce the wreck to rust in decades. Other sunken ships, such as the World War II shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) are also similarly covered. However, at the GOM sites, rusticles are only centimeters in length. Minimal differences in water temperature (a few °C) between the two sites and comparable exposure times from wreckage to discovery cannot rationalize the extreme differences in rusticle length. One possible explanation for the observed difference in rusticle size is the differing amounts of dissolved or colloidal iron at the two locations.

Auditory Alarms: A Message from Titanic

Tragedy involves emotional learning as it captures accounts in different ways and happens as a remarkable scene to characterize the so-called auditory alarms. Drawing on historiography study, this paper explores the RMS Titanic with a view from Three-Alarms Theory (TAT). It discusses True Alarm, False Alarm and Learned Alarm, and concludes with the high incidence of false alarms and its impact on different classes of sound as alarms in creative accounting treatise for future theory and research.

Teaching Statistics with Current and Historical Events

Statistical examples can feel remote to students, especially if the variables under consideration are ambiguous. However, life or death is not ambiguous but very concrete. Three different historical shipwrecks offer an abundance of ways to demonstrate the relevance and importance of statistics. Here, we discuss statistical outcomes associated with the loss of three ships: the HMT Birkenhead in 1852, the RMS Titanic in 1912, and the Korean ferry MV Sewol in April 2014. These disasters can serve as examples for demonstrating the relevance of statistics to current events. Statistics in these historical events can help students see that the survival rates of different groups of passengers were very different, with medium to large effect sizes. Even if statistical analyses cannot answer all of the questions about why some passengers had higher survival rates than others, they can lead to further productive qualitative or quantitative research into such questions.

CLAE to move to online format

CLAE to move to online format

On A Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of the RMS Titanic

On A Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of the RMS Titanic

Projecting Risk into the Future: Failure of a Geologic Repository and the Sinking of the Titanic

ABSTRACTThis year marks the 101st anniversary of the sinking of the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic. On April 15, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to New York City. There was no single cause for the loss of the Titanic, rather the improbable combination of errors in human design and decision combined with unforeseeable circumstance lead to the loss of over 1,500 lives. The failure appears to have occurred over a range of spatial and temporal scales – from the atomic-scale process of embrittlement of iron rivets to global-scale fluctuations in climate and ocean currents. Regardless of the specific combination of causes, this failure in design and practice led to impressive improvements in both. Disaster and tragedy are harsh teachers, but critical to improvement and progress.The important question for the nuclear waste management community is how do we learn and improve our waste management strategies in the absence of being able to fail. A geologic repository “operates” over a very distant time frame, and today’s scientists and engineers will never have the benefit of studying a failed system. In place of a failure that is followed by improvement and progress, we can only offer a general consensus on disposal strategies supported by a wide array of evidence and risk assessments. However, it may well be that consensus leads to complacency and compromise, both of which are harbingers of disaster. With this concern in mind, this is the time to review our fundamental approach, particularly the methodologies used in risk assessments that have us calculate risk out to one million years. The structure of standards and implementing regulations, as well as the standard-of-proof for compliance, should be reexamined in order to determine whether their requirements are scientifically possible or reasonable. The demonstration of compliance must not only be compelling, but must also be able to sustain scientific scrutiny and public inquiry. We should benefit from the sobering reality of how difficult it is to anticipate future failures even over a few decades. We should be humbled by the realization that for a geologic repository we are analyzing the performance, success vs. failure, over spatial and temporal scales that stretch over tens of kilometers and out to a hundreds of thousands of years.

I'm buying, Jack! Fooling around an ambiguous brand

ABSTRACTWithin consumer research, ambiguity is often regarded as something to be avoided or eliminated. This article argues that ambiguity should be embraced, appreciated and understood as a multifaceted phenomenon found in manifold forms. An empirical study of one of the world's biggest brands, RMS Titanic, reveals that one of ambiguity's most characteristic forms, humour, is everywhere apparent. Titanic brand culture is comedic to the core, absurd though this seems on the surface. Three categories of ambiguous brand amusement are identified in the vast cultural complex surrounding Titanic and the oceanic implications for branding's received wisdom are considered. The article concludes with the contention that ambiguity strengthens rather than weakens unfathomable brands such as Titanic. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Titanic: Consuming the Myths and Meanings of an Ambiguous Brand

Myths have come of age in consumer research. In the 22 years since Levy’s inaugural article, the literature has grown at an impressive rate. Yet important questions remain unanswered: What makes some myths especially meaningful to consumers? Why are certain consumer myths more prevalent and less perishable than others? This article argues that ambiguity is an influential factor. Using the RMS Titanic as an empirical exemplar, it unpacks the principal forms of myth-informed ambiguity surrounding “the unsinkable brand.” Predicated on William Empson’s hitherto unsung principles of literary criticism, the article posits that ambiguity in its multifaceted forms is integral to outstanding branding and consumer meaning making, as well as myth appeal more generally.

Flooding and structural forensic analysis of the sinking of the RMS Titanic

To mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, a new detailed flooding and structural engineering study was commissioned by James Cameron and his Blue Planet Marine Research Institute. The goal of the study was to accurately model, simulate and evaluate the progressive flooding, sinking and structural failure of the Titanic following its collision with the iceberg. Detailed computer flooding analysis models were developed, and new novel techniques for dynamic flooding simulation using the commercial software GHS™ were developed and implemented. The results of these detailed flooding simulations were used in conjunction with detailed structural finite-element models developed using the commercial ship structural design and analysis software MAESTRO™ for conducting detailed stress and hull failure analyses. This paper provides technical documentation of the development of the detailed computer models, including sources of information, assumptions, conventions and methods. The paper also provides technical discussion of simulation and analysis methodologies, results of the detailed progressive flooding and sinking analyses, and results of the detailed structural stress and failure analyses, along with important ‘lessons learned’ that are applicable to future marine forensic analyses.

The Titanic as Underwater Cultural Heritage: Challenges to its Legal International Protection

The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank 14–15 April 1912. This article summarizes some of the legal implications of the 100th anniversary of its sinking, as the Titanic becomes subject to the provisions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. This article also discusses the implications of the application of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the rather unique development under the law of salvage through orders of the U.S. court sitting in admiralty that prohibit the exclusive salvors in possession of the Titanic, RMS Titanic, Inc. and Premier Exhibitions, Inc. (RMST/PE) from selling individual artifacts and instead require that RMST/PE keep the collection of artifacts salvaged from the Titanic together as an intact collection for the public benefit. Finally, the article discusses the need for general legislation to protect the Titanic and other underwater cultural heritage from looting and unwanted salvage.