A Titanic Undertaking By Heidi Bell Gease
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology researches bacteria’s effect on deterioration. The Titanic had barely come to rest on the ocean floor when nature went to work on her. For decades after the 1912 shipwreck she lay in the dark, icy depths of the North Atlantic, eventually being discovered in 1985.
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quarters were gone, victims of metal-eating bacteria.
Several exploratory excursions visited the site in the years that followed. But when the first manned voyage in nearly 15 years arrived at the wreckage last August, explorers were shocked to discover how much the ship had decayed.
The same bacteria can wreak havoc with everything from off-shore drilling platforms to county bridges. And while the Titanic’s deterioration came as a shock to many, it’s nothing new to a group of scientists at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSMT) who are conducting a five-year research project on the subject.
The liner’s grand staterooms and officers’
“We are doing (research on) exactly what the
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