What’s Eating The Titanic?

When a ship sinks, lots of factors, like the ship’s materials, the water quality, and the depth of the seafloor all play a role in determining how long the ship will last down there - as a result, the Titanic will be gone in fifty years, while Byzantine wrecks in the Black sea remain.

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Anoxia: the absence of oxygen
- Chemosynthesis: the synthesis of organic compounds by bacteria or other living organisms using energy derived from reactions involving inorganic chemicals, typically in the absence of sunlight.
- Corrode: destroy or damage (metal, stone, or other materials) slowly by chemical action.
- Decomposer: an organism, especially a soil bacterium, fungus, or invertebrate, that decomposes organic material.

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CREDITS
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Cameron Duke | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Lizah van der Aart | Storyboarding and Illustration
Sarah Berman | Illustration and Video Editing
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

OUR STAFF
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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Cameron Duke
Arcadi Garcia i Rius • David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes
Alex Reich • Henry Reich • Peter Reich
Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida

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[ADMIRALTIA]

Just ya'all wait. By the time Titanic's wreck fully decays there are gonna be people claiming the ship never sank but instead got abducted by aliens.

[AndyHappyGuy]

1:41 I'm surprised you all didn't bring up a real life example of this, that being Titanic's near-identical sister ship, the Britannic!
Britannic struck a sea mine and sank only 4 years after Titanic did, but it sank in 210m deep water instead of 3800m deep water. It has held up incredibly well over the years. Many details and fixtures are still intact, despite being submerged for nearly as long as Titanic has.
Comparing images of Titanic and Britannic, you can really tell how much the iron-eating bacteria on Titanic has sped up its decay. Entire decks on the Titanic have collapsed since its discovery in 1985, yet the Britannic's structure is virtually identical to how it appeared when it first sank in 1916, despite being caked in coral and other marine life.

[sergheisisianu]

I think they knew what they were doing making the narrator Cameron for this one

[prestongarvey]

imagine being in a college dorm room, surviving on instant ramen, when a perfectly cooked 5-star gourmet meal falls from the heavens above in-front of you

that's how decomposers feel when a ship sinks

[TheAgamemnon]

Among the other points most important: Salinity and sedimentation rate. Means, river deltas are a primary archaeology target, because shipworms have a hard time there as well.

[amixofvids]

“Where did the titanic go”
“I ate it”

[mhultramarine]

I can't belive the shipwreck of the titanic and ice in the oceans are raceing to see what dispears first

[just_in_key]

“My heart may go on, but this ship will be gone” 😭😂

[styx]

Did something change recently, or has this been a gradual process for the past 100+ years? If it'll be gone by 2050 it should be pretty far gone already then, no?

[gobbleygourdiscursed]

Ayo wut the titanic covered in in the thumbnail

[ShirinRose]

I've been using Tab for a Cause for many years, and was excited to see that it recently hit a total of $1, 800, 000 raised 🥳

[Titanic-wobq]

they never said the Titanic was indestructible, only that it was *PRATICALLY* unsinkable

[Lalita_Luna]

Only 60 in the entire black sea?
Honestly that's a surprisingly low amount to what i would've expected... 😳

So, Titanic was environmentally friendly and compostable?

What make the video better is the narrator's name is Cameron :D

[MisanthropicOcellus]

0:08 poor titanic, she was broken in half and left covered in -

[almera]

THIS IS MY KINGDOM COME THIS IS MY KINGDOM COME

[benturner]

Me, it’s me eating the titanic I’m hungry

[DanNacht]

boatloads of puns in this video, be warned

[thomasmacdonough]

Microscopic ocean floor bacteria being able to consume a colossal cruiseliner? Such a fact gives me amazement but also some existential dread. Existance and lifeforms on this planet is crazy