Two-and-a-half miles under the ocean, but the Titanic is still providing lessons

Scientists are learning valuable lessons about climate change from one of the world's most famous historic marine tragedies, the sinking of the "unsinkable" White Star cruiseliner Titanic.
On the Titanic's maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, the cruise liner struck an iceberg and sank in icy water off Newfoundland, Canada. The ship was bound for New York. Out of the 2,228 people on board of the Titanic, 1,232 died and 868 survived.
For years people have debated many questions related to the Titanic, including what sank the vessel that was originally billed as a supership.
Canadian marine engineering geophysicist, Steve Blasco, will answer some of these questions in a lecture tonight at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) entitled 'Unlocking Mysteries of the Titanic'.
Twenty years ago, Mr. Blasco was one of the first scientists to go into the deep ocean of the Atlantic where the Titanic sank two-and-a-half miles below the surface.
Mr. Blasco works with the Geological Survey of Canada, at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
"I have been involved with the Titanic for about 20 years," said Mr. Blasco. "I started out with a curiosity about how the deep ocean was changing."

Mr. Blasco worked with Dr. Bob Ballard when Dr. Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1986.
Dr. Ballard, Mr. Blasco and a team of scientists went back in 1991 to launch the first scientific exhibition to look at the wreck of the Titanic.
"Once Dr. Ballard discovered it all sorts of questions came back," said Mr. Blasco.
Mr. Blasco had a look at the Titanic in a three-manned Russian submersible. He said until the voyage most people thought that the deep ocean was like a refrigerator, cold and void of life.
"We thought that everything would be perfectly preserved," he said.
What they found was quite different than their expectations. Although the Titanic was brand new and rust free when it sank, they found a badly rusted and corroded hulk, 80 years later.
Although they expected the ocean to be devoid of life at this depth they actually found several new animal species living in the wreck, and saw fish.
"So that was a surprise," he said. "It is very high pressure down there, and it is zero degrees, cold and dark. We had a new kind of light on the submersible, much more powerful light than they had developed."
They also learned what had caused the Titanic to sink in the first place.
"There was always a big question about why the ice was so effective at sinking the ship," said Mr. Blasco. "The ship was only hit by a small piece of ice. This was mankind's leading edge technology that was taken down by a small bit of Mother Nature.
"We have been involved with that as to why."
He said there were several factors that added together sealed the fate of the ship, but in the end it was faulty steel that led to such a terrible tragedy.
"They were just learning to make the steel, and it was brittle," said Mr. Blasco. "So when the ice hit it, it fractured the steel and that caused a great crack. The crack propagated along the side along all the plates and that allowed the wall of water to come in, which was not really understood at the time."
Mr. Blasco said it was an eerie experience going into the deep sea to see the Titantic wreck.
"As a scientist I was interested in the wreck in terms of what it could tell us about geology, chemistry and biology and the deep sea, but I was still struck by the human aspect," he said. "It was a gravesite for around 1,500 people.
"That wasn't to be taken lightly. When you are there you definitely sense that."
And he said as he and his colleagues undertook the dangerous mission to the bottom of the ocean, he was painfully aware of the Titanic's major lesson — man's foolishness.
"Sometimes I felt we were awfully confident about going down there in light of such a huge tragedy and saying we are not going to suffer the same fate," he said. "You think about all those things when you are down there."
This was brought home when another team in a submersible became caught up in the Titanic wreckage.
"We went up very close to it," said Mr. Blasco. "There is so much wreckage around that you could easily get trapped. At one point one of the submersibles actually did get trapped and it took them awhile to get free. They were investigating part of the hull, debris and part of the light system got caught in the wreckage."
With limited visibility, all they could do was wiggle the vessel this way and that until they broke free.
"I wasn't in that submersible though," Mr. Blasco said. "We just ran out of power on my trip, which was a little nerve racking."
Several years later, Mr. Blasco was pleased to talk with a survivor of the Titanic, Eva Hart who was seven-years-old at the time of the disaster.
"She did remember certain things about it," said Mr. Blasco.
"She never talked about nightmares but in her later years she became very philosophical about it. She lost her father.
"It was very interesting working with her. She was quite convinced that the Titanic was a bit of a metaphor for man's arrogance to say that technology could beat Mother Nature at any time. She predicted we would forget the lesson and do it again."
He said the trip to view the Titanic helped to confirm that the deep ocean was not impervious to climate change.
"We tend to think of it as being out of circulation," he said. "Visiting the Titanic gave us a much better idea of what the deep sea looked like. The question is, if we go back in 50 years, what will the Titanic look like then?
"We have some baseline information that we did not have before."
He said it was now not uncommon to use wrecks as a environmental barometer.
"The wrecks can act as indicators of change on the bottom, particularly current action," said Mr. Blasco. "We have a few areas in the deep ocean where they say there is no current action.
"But when you go down there, you get one side of the ship that is quite eroded away and the sediments are piled up on the other side, so it tells us there are currents where we didn't expect them. So you can use the wrecks to indicate what is going on in the environment."
Mr. Blasco was in Bermuda working on a joint climate change study project between Canada and a number of Bermuda organisations including the BUEI and The Bermuda, Aquarium, Museum & Zoo .
He said he was pleased to hear that BUEI was planning to keep their current Titanic exhibit, which includes photographs and memorabilia relating to the sunken ship, on show permanently.
"They are going to go from this travelling exhibit to a permanent exhibit," said Mr. Blasco. "There are very few places in the world where that will be true, simply because of public interest. Some of the people who have offered stuff have said to keep the stuff. It is properly curated here, and it will be available to the public. It won't be stored in the back or lost. The BUEI is a perfect venue."
l Mr. Blasco's talk will be at BUEI from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Doors will open at 6.30 p.m. with a cash bar. The lecture will start in the Tradewinds Auditorium at 7 p.m. It is $15 for members and $20 for non-members. Tickets are available now. Advance purchase is recommended. There will be a buffet dinner after the lecture $33.75 per person (gratuities included). To purchase tickets or for information telephone 297-7313