First Titanic expedition in 15 years finds shipwreck rapidly dissolving

A team of deep-sea explorers visited the wreck of the RMS Titanic for the first time in nearly 15 years, and discovered that large portions of the wreck are vanishing as rust and aquatic microbes eat away.

The international team, which had previously dove the Marianas Trench, used a submersible to descend to and navigate the two halves of the Titanic, which are spread out over half a kilometer of seabed.

The series of five dives to the wreck were used to capture footage for a documentary, as well as to study the ecosystem that has sprung up in and around the shipwreck at the ocean’s bottom.

Portions of the ship structure which were last seen by humans in a 2005 expedition have now collapsed or otherwise ceased to exist, such as the iconic captain’s bathtub.

The Titanic has been submerged for over a century, and the metal of the wreck has been degraded by seawater, while microbes that consume iron leave behind porous stalactites of rust on the ship’s skeleton.

While the Titanic was designated a protected site by Unesco in 2012, there is nothing to be done about the wreck’s natural degradation.