tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/titanic-2765/articlesTitanic – La Conversation2023-07-12T12:39:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2086512023-07-12T12:39:51Z2023-07-12T12:39:51ZClassic literature still offers rich lessons about life in the deep blue sea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536664/original/file-20230710-27-mgth0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5815%2C3234&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Novels about underwater adventures offer a glimpse at oceanic life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/underwater-ocean-royalty-free-image/1485125421?phrase=underwater&adppopup=true">fotograzia via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When OceanGate, the deep-sea exploration enterprise, created a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi60tvRwRlE">promotional video</a> for its ill-fated US$250,000-per-head trip to see the wreck of the Titanic, it told prospective passengers to “Get ready for what Jules Verne could only imagine – a 12,500-foot journey to the bottom of the sea.” Those behind the video hoped viewers would recognize the allusion to the author of one of the most influential and widely read oceanic novels of all time, “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/855909314">20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</a>.”</p>
<p>There are indeed eerie similarities between the 1870 French novel and the circumstances surrounding the Titan submersible, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/missing-submarine-titanic-search.html">lost contact less than two hours into its descent</a> into the depths of the Atlantic.</p>
<p>In the novel, a supposedly indestructible vessel strikes an iceberg. A man of untold wealth dreams of voyaging to the bottom of the sea, sharing with a select few passengers a glimpse of the mysteries of the deep. He descends to the ocean floor in order to gawk at the wreckage of a great ship that sank years before. But later in the novel a technical problem in the submarine starts a race against time as crew members try to reach the surface before their oxygen tanks are empty. And not everyone survives.</p>
<p>For me, as the leader of a “<a href="https://ihr.asu.edu/blue-humanities">Blue Humanities” initiative at Arizona State University</a> that explores how the literature of the past can inform the present about the importance of the oceans, revisiting the novel served another purpose. It reaffirmed for me how classic literature – particularly stories about adventures at sea and, quite frankly, misadventures, as well – continues to serve as one of the best ways for humanity to educate itself about the largely unexplored realm.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A character from Jules Verne's novel '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' looks out a submarine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536679/original/file-20230710-25-v6kppz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Jules Verne’s novel ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ follows a wealthy man who voyages to the bottom of the sea to explore a ship that sank years before.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/captain-nemo-twenty-thousand-leagues-under-the-sea-jules-news-photo/869034230?adppopup=true">Marka/Universal Images Group Editorial via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Exploring the ‘seven seas’</h2>
<p>Verne’s original title had “les mers” - seas, plural. A “league” (French “lieue”) was a measure that has been different lengths at different times in history. In the novel, it is just over 2 miles. So Verne was alluding to distance traveled, not depth of descent. The deepest place on Earth, the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mariana-trench-is-7-miles-deep-whats-down-there/">Mariana Trench</a> in the Pacific, is only 3½ leagues down, whereas the journey of the imaginary submarine, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, is a 40,000-mile circumnavigation of what used to be called “the seven seas.”</p>
<p>Verne’s novel and other classics – such as Herman Melville’s “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1263807806">Moby-Dick</a>” in 1851, and Thomas Hardy’s 1912 poem on the sinking of the Titanic, “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47266/the-convergence-of-the-twain">The Convergence of the Twain</a>” – are allegories of nature shattering the hubris of technology.</p>
<p>In Melville’s novel, the great white whale rams the good ship Pequod and drags Captain Ahab to a watery death. </p>
<p>For Hardy, <a href="https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-titanic-why-did-people-believe-titanic-was-unsinkable">the claim that the Titanic was “unsinkable</a>” is a prime example of human arrogance. In his poem, he imagines how sea-worms – “grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent” – now crawl over the gilded mirrors that were meant to “glass the opulent.”</p>
<h2>Unexplored depths</h2>
<p>The ocean bed remains an alien world. Like outer space, it is truly a final frontier. Indeed, it is often said that <a href="https://whalebonemag.com/know-more-about-mars-bottom-ocean/">we know more about Mars than we do about the bottom of the sea</a>. The National Ocean Service reminds us that the seas cover more than two-thirds of the planet. Still, “more than eighty percent of this vast, underwater realm remains <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/exploration.html">unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored</a>.”</p>
<p>The mysteriousness of what lurks down there makes the seabed a prime location for fantasy. This can be seen in <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/atlantis">Plato’s ancient idea of a lost kingdom called Atlantis</a>. And it can also be seen in the enduring idea of the <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/what-mermaid">mermaid</a>, or the comic world of SpongeBob SquarePants – which was created by a marine science educator, the late <a href="https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/spongebob-squarepants-creator-dead-dies-stephen-hillenburg-1203037362/">Stephen Hillenburg</a>.</p>
<p>There is an ingrained human fear of sinking below the waves. This fear is depicted in such haunting paintings as Théodore Géricault’s “<a href="https://smarthistory.org/theodore-gericault-raft-of-the-medusa/">The Raft of the Medusa</a>” and J.M.W. Turner’s “<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-shipwreck-n00476">The Shipwreck</a>.” So too, from the Greek tragedy of “<a href="https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/objects-and-artworks/highlights/context/stories-and-histories/the-death-of-hippolytus#:%7E:text=As%20he%20leaves%20his%20home,tell%20Theseus%20of%20the%20disaster.">Hippolytus” by Euripides</a> to “<a href="https://www.tor.com/2009/10/13/the-way-the-world-ends-john-wyndhams-lemgthe-kraken-wakeslemg/">The Kraken Wakes</a>,” a 1953 novel by science fiction writer John Wyndham, there is terror at the idea of a monster rising from the deep.</p>
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<img alt="A photo of the Titanic sitting on the ocean floor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536665/original/file-20230710-19-7wbdbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A spare anchor sits in its well on the forepeak of the shipwrecked Titanic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/forepeek-of-titanic-shipwreck-royalty-free-image/520112444?phrase=titanic&adppopup=true">Ralph White via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In our world of <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/bio/lauren-kubiak/marine-biodiversity-dangerous-decline-finds-new-report">marine biodiversity loss</a>, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08062016/coral-bleaching-alarms-scientists-climate-change-global-warming-great-barrier-reef/">bleached coral</a> and <a href="https://marinesanctuary.org/blog/ocean-acidification/">ocean acidification</a>, we need positive as well as paranoid imaginings of the deep. The literature of the sea gives us not only tales of maritime bravery and catastrophe, but also compelling imagery that fosters a more sobering understanding of the threats to the world’s oceans and oceanic life.</p>
<h2>Among the first</h2>
<p>Jules Verne was indeed a pioneer of the celebration of underwater life that has been the mission of natural history documentaries from Jacques Cousteau’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr4FrELKfvk">The Silent World</a>” in 1956 to Sir David Attenborough’s “<a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/shows/blue-planet">The Blue Planet</a>” in 2001.</p>
<p>It was only with the invention of the submarine that humans could reach more than a few feet below the surface of the waves. In the 1620s the Dutch inventor <a href="http://scihi.org/cornelis-drebbel-submarine/">Cornelis Drebbel</a> descended into the River Thames in a bell-shaped submersible powered by oars, his oxygen supplied by setting fire to saltpeter. </p>
<p>At the end of the 18th century there were <a href="https://archive.org/details/robertfultonsubm00parsrich/page/n15/mode/2up">rudimentary attempts at designing military submarines</a>, including a French one called the Nautilus, which gave Verne the name for his imaginary invention. His more immediate inspiration was the <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/02/priority-plongeur-french-submarine-launched-1863-first-world-propelled-mechanical-rather-human-power/">Plongeur</a>, designed for the French navy in the early 1860s. It reached a depth of 30 feet – or 9 meters – and could stay underwater for two hours. </p>
<p>Verne saw a model of it at the <a href="https://library.brown.edu/cds/paris/worldfairs.html#de1867">1867 Exposition Universelle</a> in Paris, where he also learned about a recent discovery: the mechanical power of electricity. He put the two things together and set about writing a novel about an electrically powered submarine with an invincible hull, snaking under the oceans at unprecedented speed.</p>
<p>In the initial draft, the fabulously wealthy and cultured Captain Nemo is a Polish nobleman and political radical in flight from the Russian imperialism that has destroyed his family and homeland. But <a href="https://frenchquest.com/2020/11/08/hidden-treasures-the-manuscripts-of-twenty-thousand-leagues-under-the-sea/">Verne’s publisher made him remove the politics</a>, since Russia was a French ally at the time, so Nemo becomes a figure of mysterious origins. <a href="http://www.verniana.org/volumes/10/HTML/Bertman.html">The name, meaning “no one,</a>” was taken from the pseudonym for Odysseus, the original maritime voyager of Western literature and main character in Homer’s poem “The Odyssey.”</p>
<p>Nemo is both a hero and a murderous hater of humankind. Disillusioned by the modern world, he takes refuge in the wonders of the deep.</p>
<p>Verne read deeply in the nascent science of marine biology, poring over such works as M.F. Maury’s pioneering “<a href="https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/physicalgeograp00maura">The Physical Geography of the Sea</a>,” published in 1855. By incorporating Maury’s research into an adventure story, Verne was able to educate readers of all ages about the astonishing richness of marine life. The novel is filled with detailed catalogs of fish and corals, delighted observations of organic forms ranging from sharks and whales to mollusks and tiny phosphorescent zoophytes. Like <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo27616248.html">Melville in “Moby-Dick</a>” a few years before him and the great environmentalist Rachel Carson in her “<a href="https://loa.org/books/699-the-sea-trilogy">Sea Trilogy</a>” nearly a century after him, Verne braids together scientific taxonomy and poetic imagery. Melville’s novel vividly realizes barnacles and squid as well as whales and sharks. Carson even makes the reader empathize with slimy eels. So too, Verne’s novel includes dozens of sentences <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2488/2488-h/2488-h.htm">such as this</a>:</p>
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<p>Then, as specimens of other genera, blowfish resembling a dark brown egg, furrowed with white bands, and lacking tails; globefish, genuine porcupines of the sea, armed with stings and able to inflate themselves until they look like a pin cushion bristling with needles; seahorses common to every ocean; flying dragonfish with long snouts and highly distended pectoral fins shaped like wings, which enable them, if not to fly, at least to spring into the air; spatula-shaped paddlefish whose tails are covered with many scaly rings; snipefish with long jaws, excellent animals twenty-five centimeters long and gleaming with the most cheerful colors; bluish gray dragonets with wrinkled heads; myriads of leaping blennies with black stripes and long pectoral fins, gliding over the surface of the water with prodigious speed; delicious sailfish that can hoist their fins in a favorable current like so many unfurled sails; splendid nurseryfish on which nature has lavished yellow, azure, silver, and gold; yellow mackerel with wings made of filaments; bullheads forever spattered with mud, which make distinct hissing sounds; sea robins whose livers are thought to be poisonous; ladyfish that can flutter their eyelids; finally, archerfish with long, tubular snouts, real oceangoing flycatchers, armed with a rifle unforeseen by either Remington or Chassepot: it slays insects by shooting them with a simple drop of water.</p>
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<p>The scientist <a href="https://jbshaldane.org/">J.B.S. Haldane</a> once said, “The world will not perish for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.” Perhaps it is now time to reawaken a sense of wonder at the life of the oceans by returning to such classics of marine literature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Bate does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent tragedy of the Titan submersible bore striking parallels to one of the most widely read novels about life at sea.Jonathan Bate, Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2091032023-07-06T20:35:04Z2023-07-06T20:35:04ZA combination of social, organizational and technical factors caused the Titan’s implosion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535971/original/file-20230706-29-76pbqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3656%2C2424&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Edward Cassano, speaking at a news conference, led the search team that found the remains of the submersible. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Carolyn Thompson)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/a-combination-of-social-organizational-and-technical-factors-caused-the-titans-implosion" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The implosion that took the lives of five souls who made the perilous deep sea voyage to the Titanic shipwreck is not your typical disaster. But perhaps the OceanGate Titan submersible craft was <a href="https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/a-preoccupation-with-failure-why-the-titan-submersible-was-doomed-from-the-start-2">doomed from the start</a>.</p>
<p>On July 6, OceanGate announced that it <a href="https://oceangateexpeditions.com/">would be suspending all exploration and commercial operations</a>, and that their Pacific Northwest headquarters in Everett, Wash., <a href="https://www.kptv.com/2023/06/23/oceangates-pnw-offices-closed-indefinitely-after-ceo-dies-submersible/">would be closing indefinitely</a>.</p>
<p>In the wake of the disaster at sea on June 18, these actions are reflective of a company that is in the midst of a crisis of continuity as the overall future of the organization is uncertain.</p>
<p>Given the disaster, it is surprising that the advertising web pages for future Titanic excursions have not yet been taken down. Perhaps it is reflective of a rapidly evolving situation with a company in crisis. </p>
<h2>Reasons for failure</h2>
<p>Concepts explaining the Titan’s failure can be traced back to <a href="https://www.mindtherisk.com/literature/157-man-made-disasters-by-barry-a-turner">ideas developed 45 years ago</a>. Barry Turner, an organizational sociologist and safety pioneer, <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/65580">studied long-forgotten disasters</a>. Turner analyzed catastrophes like <a href="https://www.bgs.ac.uk/case-studies/aberfan-1966-landslide-case-study/">the 1966 Aberfan disaster in Wales</a>, where 144 people were killed after waste from coal mining spilled into their village.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-repeats-itself-the-titan-submersible-implosion-mirrors-past-disasters-208420">History repeats itself: The Titan submersible implosion mirrors past disasters</a>
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<p>Turner suggested that the interaction of social, organizational and technical processes were key to causing disaster.</p>
<p>Advances in the study of socio-technical problems continue to inform our understanding of unusual technological disasters like submarine implosions. Both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026603262031">normal accident theory</a> and the concept of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5973.1996.tb00077.x">high-reliability organizations</a> help in understanding the big picture causes of the Titan submersible implosion.</p>
<h2>Normal accidents</h2>
<p>During the mid-1980s, sociologist Charles Perrow established <a href="https://www.eventsafetyalliance.org/news/2016/11/9/normal-accident-theory-explained">normal accident theory</a>. His premise was that machines, technologies and support systems were extremely complex and tightly coupled. An accident, then, could be considered an inevitable — normal — outcome.</p>
<p>Perrow analyzed situations of failure, like the <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html">1979 Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant meltdown</a>. He considered nuclear safety by looking at <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691004129/normal-accidents">some serious accidents, some trivial incidents, problems of reliability and management and the special characteristics of the nuclear power system</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="four cooling towers of a nuclear power plant in the distance" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535900/original/file-20230705-25-s5ak77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant experienced a partial meltdown in 1979. The site was shut down completely in 2019, and is currently being decommissioned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(J. Rozdilsky)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Perrow sought to establish a basis for understanding why accidents will happen involving high-risk systems that someone has decided we cannot live without. Harms from a nuclear meltdown can impact society as whole. But it is complicated considering the demands for divestment from fossil fuels. Arguments can be made from both sides as to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34114392">whether society can live with nuclear energy or not</a>.</p>
<p>However, in the case of the Titan submersible, a small group of people decided that the rewards outweighed the risks for getting a close-up view of the shipwreck. Accidents due to manned exploration of a treacherous 111-year-old shipwreck site, while tragic, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-tragedy-the-failure-of-oceangate-submersible-titan/">are limited to direct participants</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-submersible-catastrophic-implosion-questions-remain-about-the-costs-and-ethics-of-rescuing-tourist-expeditions-208163">Titanic submersible 'catastrophic implosion': questions remain about the costs and ethics of rescuing tourist expeditions</a>
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<h2>High-reliability organizations</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/477404a">debate ensued over causes of technological disasters</a>. Dangers of normal accidents were balanced against the safety culture of high-reliability organizations.</p>
<p>In his 1993 book, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691021010/the-limits-of-safety"><em>The Limits of Safety</em></a>, political scientist Scott Sagan asked: Are normal accidents inevitable? Or can the combination of interactive complexity and tight coupling be safely managed?</p>
<p>In supporting the safe management of complex technologies, high-reliability organizations emerged. They have a track record of decades of safety with risky technologies. Notwithstanding rare exceptions resulting in disasters like <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/chernobyl-bg.html">Chernobyl</a> or <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/japan-events.html">Fukushima</a>, nuclear power plant operators are high-reliability organizations. </p>
<p>A nuclear navy is also a high-reliability organization. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639502100403">Studies of a nuclear submarine’s organizational culture</a> suggested specific social-technical interactions occur. Higher levels of knowledge along with technical experience are necessary. The result of the interaction is to transform a high-risk system into a high reliability system.</p>
<h2>Acknowledging complexity</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://europepmc.org/article/nbk/nbk542883">characteristic of high-reliability organizations</a> is the reluctance to simplify anything. They accept that the tasks at hand are complex, with a real potential to fail in new unexpected ways.</p>
<p>Photographs of the interior of the ill-fated Titan submersible show bare walls with no resemblance to a stereotypical cockpit with its bells and whistles. Photographs of the interior of James Cameron’s Titanic exploration submersible, the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/how-james-cameron-submersible-compares-oceangate-titan-1808594">Deep Sea Challenger</a>, appear to resemble a more complicated cockpit with controllers and gauges on the walls.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671980973754294285"}"></div></p>
<p>OceanGate admitted to using several pieces of off-the-shelf technology that streamlined construction and made the submersible simple to operate. For example, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-missing-video-game-xbox-controller-is-that-normal/">modified video game controllers were used for controlling the Titan</a> submersible.</p>
<p>OceanGate acted to simplify an otherwise complex endeavour, and appear to not have behaved as a high-reliability organization.</p>
<h2>A wake-up call</h2>
<p>The implosion of the Titan is a wake-up call for exploration or tourism companies who plan to continue to send people to inhospitable environments like the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/titanic-sub-search-catastrophic-implosion-rcna90744">extreme conditions present 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface</a>. If not doing so at present, these companies should mimic the organizational culture of high-reliability organizations.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-was-the-catastrophic-implosion-of-the-titan-submersible-an-expert-explains-208359">What was the 'catastrophic implosion' of the Titan submersible? An expert explains</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>While eliminating the risk of death is not possible with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/bobs-blog-titan-submersible-mars-1.6886336">extreme travel to outer space or the deep sea bottom</a>, the main goal of companies undertaking such excursions should be to attempt to reduce the loss of life to the maximum achievable extent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack L. Rozdilsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Complex endeavours require complex risk management, and high-reliability organizations recognize this. OceanGate did not plan for the complexity of its operations, with tragic consequences.Jack L. Rozdilsky, Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2073552023-06-28T15:12:36Z2023-06-28T15:12:36ZFrom raising the global sea level to crushing life on the seafloor – here’s why you should care about icebergs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534283/original/file-20230627-23-8yvpno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C13%2C4375%2C2923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Icebergs in Disko Bay, western Greenland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/icebergs-disco-bay-near-ilulissat-greenland-1888385068">Chris Christophersen/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Late in the evening of April 14 1912, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-twist-1912-wasnt-a-bad-year-for-icebergs-after-all-25621">RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg</a> in the north-west Atlantic. In just over two and a half hours, the Titanic sank, claiming the lives of 1,514 people.</p>
<p>The Titanic disaster is one good reason to understand icebergs better. But their significance extends far beyond posing a risk to ships and other offshore structures. Icebergs are crucial to monitor because of their profound impact on the natural world and human societies.</p>
<p>Icebergs are formed when chunks of ice break off from the front of glaciers and floating ice shelves. They exist in a range of sizes, from small formations known as “growlers” and “bergy bits” (that extend up to 5 metres above sea level), to larger icebergs aptly referred to as “giants”. </p>
<p>In 2000, one of Antarctica’s largest icebergs, <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/552/iceberg-b-15-ross-ice-shelf-antarctica">called B-15</a>, had a surface area roughly the same size as Jamaica. Since then, <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92238/end-of-the-journey-for-iceberg-b-15z">B-15 has fractured</a> into a number of smaller pieces and most have melted away. </p>
<p>Icebergs that break off from an already floating ice shelf do not displace ocean water when they melt, just as melting ice cubes do not raise the liquid level in a glass. But when an ice shelf collapses, it no longer holds back inland glacial ice. This inland ice will then move faster and can rapidly release new icebergs, which displace ocean water and contribute to sea level rise. </p>
<p>In 2022, Antarctica’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/conger-ice-shelf-has-collapsed-what-you-need-to-know-according-to-experts-180077">Conger ice shelf</a> collapsed. Some of the continent’s other large <a href="https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/changing-antarctica/shrinking-ice-shelves/ice-shelves/">ice shelves</a> are also thought to be at risk of collapse in the future, particularly those around the unstable West Antarctic ice sheet. The collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet alone could <a href="https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/question/ice-antarctica-melt-much-global-sea-level-rise-quickly-likely-happen/">raise the global sea level by 3.2 metres</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A glacier calving large chunks of ice into the ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534292/original/file-20230627-15-c2x0zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A chunk of ice breaking off from a glacier in Neko Harbour, Antarctica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/neko-harbor-glacier-calving-andvord-bay-1556725400">Steve Allen/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Global warming accelerates not only iceberg release, but also the rate at which icebergs melt. As icebergs melt, they release freshwater to the ocean. </p>
<p>In the northern hemisphere, a surplus of freshwater from the Greenland ice sheet in the future has the potential to weaken or even shut down the North Atlantic Conveyor “pump”, which circulates warm tropical waters northwards. If the North Atlantic Conveyor pump is significantly affected, the northern hemisphere could be plunged into <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00167487.2005.12094137">sub-zero, glacial conditions</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Scouring’ the seabed</h2>
<p>Icebergs are often thought of as floating masses of ice. Yet their undersides regularly come into contact with the seabed, gouging out sediment on the seafloor to form “scour” marks. Some <a href="https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v186/p1-8/">15–20% of the world’s oceans</a> are affected by this phenomenon.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116303638">Research</a> that I co-authored in 2016 on iceberg scouring in East Greenland, found that icebergs can disturb sediment up to several metres below the seabed. This disturbance poses a risk to offshore marine structures such as buried pipelines and telecommunication cables.</p>
<p>Icebergs can also crush plants and animals when they collide with the seabed. These organisms, such as seagrasses and molluscs, are important stores of carbon in polar regions. In areas of West Antarctica, referred to as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.13523">“iceberg killing fields”</a>, iceberg scouring may recycle around 80,000 tonnes of carbon back into the atmosphere each year. </p>
<h2>Ocean fertilisers (and polluters)</h2>
<p>But it’s not all bad news. Some icebergs contain substantial amounts of iron-rich sediment, known as “dirty ice”. These icebergs <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13231-0">fertilise the ocean</a> by supplying important nutrients to marine organisms such as phytoplankton. </p>
<p>Following the passage of an iceberg, there is an increase in organism growth and levels of chlorophyll (the green pigment in plants used for photosynthesis) in the surrounding water. This can result in vibrant blooms that extract CO₂ from the atmosphere as they grow. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2633">One study</a> on icebergs in the Southern Ocean found that these blooms can be up to ten times the length of the iceberg and can persist for more than a month. Blooms in the wake of icebergs off Antarctica have the capacity to absorb <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/icebergs-climate-change-1.3401729#:%7E:text=Ocean%20blooms%20in%20the%20wake,as%20Sweden%20or%20New%20Zealand.">up to 40 million tonnes of carbon</a> each year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A satellite image of a phytoplankton bloom in the Ross Sea, Southern Ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534296/original/file-20230627-29-a5yqmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">January 22, 2011: a phytoplankton bloom in the Ross Sea, Southern Ocean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/48949/bloom-in-the-ross-sea">Norman Kuring/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But icebergs hold more than just nutrients in their icy structures. Glacier ice may harbour <a href="https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-021-01106-w">ancient bacterial and viral microbes</a>, even including <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1657/1938-4246-44.4.432">buried faecal microorganisms</a>. These microbes will eventually emerge at the glacier’s surface or in icebergs where they will enter natural ecosystems and could pose a threat to human health. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03091333221107376">Research</a> has also identified various other contaminants within glaciers. These include soot, nuclear fallout, potentially toxic elements such as arsenic, mercury and lead, nitrogen-based contaminants such as fertilisers and animal waste, microplastics and persistent organic pollutants such as pesticides and solvents. </p>
<p>Scientists are, however, exploring the possibility of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26952-y#:%7E:text=A%20long%2Dheld%20idea%20is,United%20Arab%20Emirates%20(UAE)">towing icebergs to water-scarce regions</a>. An iceberg holding 20 billion gallons of freshwater could potentially <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/05/could-towing-icebergs-to-hot-places-solve-the-worlds-water-shortage">meet the water needs of a million people</a> for five years – provided that the water is uncontaminated. </p>
<p>Icebergs have an impact on our oceans, atmosphere and societies. As the climate emergency intensifies and our glaciers and ice sheets continue to recede, the significance of icebergs will only grow, for better or worse.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorna Linch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Icebergs don’t just pose a risk to ships – they have a profound impact on the natural world and human societies.Lorna Linch, Principal Lecturer in Physical Geography, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084972023-06-28T12:03:20Z2023-06-28T12:03:20ZThe Titan disaster could suggest deep sea diving is risky – history shows that’s far from the truth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534330/original/file-20230627-19-hmzavo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5168%2C3445&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A view of the seafloor from the Deep Rover 2 submersible.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jon Copley</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The tragic death of five people when the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/22/titanic-sub-titan-debris-field-search-area-latest">Titan submersible imploded</a> during its descent to the wreck of the Titanic has led some to describe deep-diving submersibles as inherently risky. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/race-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea-the-little-known-heroes-of-the-20th-centurys-inner-space-race-130251%3Etheir%20history">their history</a> shows that this is far from the case. </p>
<p>Bathyspheres were unpowered submersibles lowered into the sea on a cable and <a href="https://divingmuseum.org/artofabyss/bathysphere/">used for pioneering dives</a> in the early 1930s. Since then, submersibles have taken many more people into the deep ocean than the number of humans who have been into space. None of those submersible dives have previously experienced a catastrophic hull failure. The investigation of the Titan will now seek to understand why it was an exception.</p>
<p>Other vehicles had visited the Titanic multiple times. The Titan had a tubular design – rather than the usual spherical shape – and the hull was made of carbon fibre, a material not previously used on deep-diving submersibles.</p>
<p>Deep-diving submersibles are smaller than traditional submarines, and unlike submarines they are launched and recovered from a surface support ship. Although submarines have suffered implosions when damage or systems failures have caused them to sink beyond their much shallower depth limits, no submersible had imploded before under the <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/did-you-know/why-is-pressure-different-in-the-ocean/">huge pressures of the deep ocean</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zepZHCvOgh8?wmode=transparent&start=9" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In 1954, the bathyscaphe FNRS-3 made a record dive to a depth of 4,050 metres.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before the Titan, the only fatal incidents involving the occupants of submersibles occurred in the 1970s in shallow water. Fumes from an electrical fire overcame the occupants of a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Manned_Submersibles.html?id=7Oy7NKSdSmgC&redir_esc=y">Japanese tethered diving bell</a> at around 10 metres deep in 1974. Prior to that, the Johnson Sealink submersible became <a href="http://www.psubs.org/accidents/johnsealink.pdf">entangled on a shipwreck</a> at 110 metres deep in 1973, and two of its four occupants died from carbon dioxide poisoning before it was recovered. </p>
<p>In 1970, the Nekton Beta submersible was salvaging a sunken powerboat, when it broke free from its lifting line and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Manned_Submersibles.html?id=7Oy7NKSdSmgC&redir_esc=y">collided with the submersible</a>, causing a leak that drowned one of the occupants.</p>
<h2>Pushing the limits</h2>
<p>When the wreck of the Titanic was discovered at 3,800 metres deep in 1985, submersibles had already been diving to greater depths than that for several decades. The first to do so was a bathyscaphe – a submersible suspended below a float, rather than from a cable like the bathysphere. It was called FNRS-3 and it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zepZHCvOgh8">set an overall depth record for the time</a>, reaching 4,050 metres in 1954. It was followed by the Trieste, which dived 10,916 metres down in the Mariana Trench in 1960.</p>
<p>Since then, there have been at least 16 submersibles that have repeatedly taken people deeper than the Titanic in the past 69 years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Bow of the Titanic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534309/original/file-20230627-19-b9z27d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Titanic arguably holds a place in popular culture unmatched by any other wreck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.noaa.gov/stories/safeguarding-rms-titanic-s-final-resting-place">NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The US submersible <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news-features/evolution-of-alvin/">Alvin</a> made the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I6JMK5F7RI">first dives to investigate the Titanic</a> in July 1986, followed by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautile">French submersible Nautile</a> in 1987. Nautile returned in 1993 and dived to the wreck 47 times in total. </p>
<p>Over a 14-year period starting in 1991, the two Russian Mir submersibles visited the Titanic wreck more than any other vehicle. These expeditions included filming the ship for director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1997_film)">James Cameron’s movie Titanic</a> in 1995.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Mir-2 submersible" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534325/original/file-20230627-25-irck3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mir-2 submersible, photographed by the author in 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jon Copley</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Mir submersibles were used for the first tourist dives to the Titanic, which began in 1998 and cost US$32,000 per customer at the time, equivalent to around US$69,000 today. Two people <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1461368.stm">got married aboard Mir</a> while it was diving on the bow of the Titanic in 2001, having won their dive tickets in a competition. </p>
<p>On their final dives to the Titanic in 2005, the Mir submersibles also filmed a live TV programme from the wreck, relaying images via a fibre-optic tether to their support ship and then ashore by satellite. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Cameron">Cameron</a> presented the show, Discovery Channel’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_d4qOvKkUM">Last Mysteries of the Titanic</a>, from inside Mir-2 as part of the first broadcast from such a depth.</p>
<h2>Today’s submersible fleet</h2>
<p>The Mirs are now museum exhibits. But there are currently seven submersibles in service that can reach the depth of the Titanic and beyond. Six of them are owned by governments and used for deep-sea science. Three of these are Chinese, while the US, France and Japan have one apiece.</p>
<p>There is one very deep-diving submersible in private ownership: the Limiting Factor was built by Triton Submarines for Texan billionaire Victor Vescovo to pilot to the deepest point in all five oceans in 2019. It has since dived in more than a dozen deep-ocean trenches, including repeated dives to the ocean’s deepest point: the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. Limiting Factor also <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49420935">dived to the Titanic</a> five times in 2019. In 2022, Vescovo sold it to the Inkfish research organisation founded by US billionaire Gabe Newell, and it has since been renamed the Bakunawa.</p>
<p>All of the current submersibles that can reach the depth of the Titanic enclose their occupants in a spherical metal hull, as that shape helps to distribute pressure evenly across its surface. Those craft can only accommodate two or three people, as a larger spherical hull would be too big and heavy to launch and then recover easily from a support ship. The Titan had a tubular-shaped hull, splitting the traditional sphere and inserting a carbon fibre tube between its halves to make room for five occupants.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Japan's Shinkai 6500 submersible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534344/original/file-20230627-26805-kycoxd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japan’s Shinkai 6500 submersible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shinnkai_6500_01.JPG">Toshinori Baba</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But hull shape isn’t the only consideration in investigating what happened to the Titan. The Aluminaut submersible of the 1960s, which was capable of diving to 4,500 metres, had an aluminium hull with a tubular shape that could carry seven people. </p>
<p>So the investigation will also consider the materials used in the Titan’s hull, including the carbon fibre that had not been used for that purpose before, and how the two titanium hemispheres and carbon fibre tube section of the hull were joined together.</p>
<p>In 2013, I dived aboard Japan’s <a href="https://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/equipment/ships/shinkai6500.html">Shinkai 6500</a> submersible to study undersea hot springs at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/05/five-thousand-metres-sea-hydrothermal-vents">5,000 metres deep</a> on the ocean floor. I would dive in that vehicle again if I had the opportunity -– not as any sort of risk-taking adventurer, but as a scientist safely going to work. </p>
<p>By analysing debris from the seafloor, the investigation of what happened to the Titan needs to examine why it is such an apparent outlier in the safety record of deep-diving submersibles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Copley receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)</span></em></p>The recent tragedy was an outlier; deep-diving submersibles have an outstanding safety record.Jon Copley, Professor of Ocean Exploration and Science Communication, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084202023-06-26T22:27:46Z2023-06-26T22:27:46ZHistory repeats itself: The Titan submersible implosion mirrors past disasters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533871/original/file-20230625-98671-pae5gj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=178%2C178%2C4740%2C3191&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Coast Guard said it is leading an investigation into the loss of the Titan submersible to determine what caused it to implode.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Steven Senne)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The search for OceanGate’s lost Titan submersible captivated the world last week. Following the news that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/search-intensifies-titanic-sub-with-only-hours-oxygen-left-2023-06-22">the sub had imploded on June 18 while descending to see the wreck of the Titanic</a>, focus has now shifted to how the event happened.</p>
<p>Like many, I was saddened by the loss of the five people on board Titan. It was terrible news and a terrible loss. But it’s a loss we now know was preventable. As someone who has spent their career studying shipwrecks, crew and passenger safety should always come first.</p>
<p>Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions who oversaw the design and construction of Titan, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65998914">dismissed safety warnings about the sub as “baseless</a>.” According to film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron, members of the deep-diving community <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9788737/titan-sub-flawed-titanic-director-james-cameron/">had long warned OceanGate about flaws in the Titan’s design</a>. </p>
<p>The Titan disaster is reminiscent of a historic naval tragedy — the very same one the sub was heading towards during its ill-fated dive. </p>
<h2>Tunnel vision</h2>
<p>Like Edward Smith, the captain of Titanic, Rush also went down with his ship. And, as Cameron noted, both disasters could have been prevented if only each captain had heeded the warnings they received beforehand. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2022/04/despite-the-warning-iceberg-right-ahead-the-titanic-was-doomed">Smith disregarded telegrams from other ships</a> earlier in the day warning about icebergs ahead. Instead of slowing his ship, he ordered full steam ahead, ultimately causing the loss of more than 1,500 lives. </p>
<p>In Rush’s case, he <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/06/20/missing-titan-submersible-safety">disregarded his company’s director of marine operations</a> who pointed out serious flaws in the Titan’s construction. Rush’s response was to fire him. </p>
<p>Rush also disregarded industry experts and the members of the deep sea diving community, saying their safety regulations were <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/oceangate-warned-2018-david-lochridge-1.6883432">too strict and stifled innovation</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle-aged white man sits smiling inside of a the cylindrical body of a submersible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533864/original/file-20230625-154331-7jinnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush was piloting the Titan submersible when it imploded near the wreckage of the Titanic, killing all five people on board, the U.S. Coast Guard announced on June 22, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Arnie Weissmann/Travel Weekly via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Titan disaster is also akin to a second historical disaster, the loss of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-led-to-antarctic-explorer-captain-scotts-death-178810">Scott died a month before the Titanic sank</a> trying to be the first person to reach the South Pole. Like Scott, Rush’s expedition was ill-equipped and poorly managed, and he failed to listen to more experienced explorers.</p>
<h2>The Titan’s fatal flaw</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A teardrop-shaped submersible is seen underwater." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533863/original/file-20230625-153905-54axia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">OceanGate’s Titan submersible seen on a dive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(OceanGate Expeditions via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Titan wasn’t designed like other deep sea submersibles. Most subs consist of a titanium sphere in which the crew sits. The sphere’s shape evenly distributes the ambient pressure applied to it as the submersible dives.</p>
<p>Size and shape matter underwater. The more people inside, the bigger the sphere needs to be. Most submersibles can house up to three people: a pilot and two passengers. The Russian submersibles, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/three-other-subs-visiting-titanic-almost-suffered-the-same-fate-as-titan-1.6887824">Mir I and Mir II</a>, that Cameron used to make the movie <em>Titanic</em>, were of this type.</p>
<p>Rush figured he could build a five-person submersible by cutting a sphere in half and connecting both halves with a tube. Instead of using titanium, <a href="https://www.insider.com/oceangate-ceo-said-titan-made-old-material-bought-boeing-report-2023-6">he used thin layers of carbon fibre</a> sandwiched together — like a surfboard, only stronger. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-was-the-catastrophic-implosion-of-the-titan-submersible-an-expert-explains-208359">What was the 'catastrophic implosion' of the Titan submersible? An expert explains</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In addition to making the submersible bigger inside, carbon fibre also made the submersible lighter. If Rush had used steel, the submersible would have been too heavy.</p>
<p>The pressure hull of a submersible contracts when it dives and expands on its return to the surface. Titanium withstands this process much better than carbon fibre, especially after many dives. </p>
<p>Because Rush <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-expert-explains-what-safety-features-a-submersible-should-have-208187">had never strength-tested the submersible’s pressure hull</a>, he had no way of knowing how its carbon fibre walls would hold up. The walls were able to withstand the two previous dives to the wreck of Titanic. They did not survive the third.</p>
<h2>Investigations into the disaster</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanic/Aftermath-and-investigation">As with the Titanic</a>, there are now <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9791296/tsb-investigation-polar-prince-return">ongoing investigations into the Titan sub disaster</a>. Both the U.S. Coast Guard and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada have announced their own investigations.</p>
<p>Rush wasn’t the only participant in this disaster. While not necessarily culpable for the disaster, anyone else involved will be able to provide authorities with information to help them understand the sequence of events that led up to the implosion.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in construction uniforms and hard hats stand on the bow of a large ship. The name POLAR PRINCE is written on the side of the ship." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533866/original/file-20230625-61110-c4qk77.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crew members of the Polar Prince prepare to dock the ship as it arrives at the Coast Guard wharf on June 24, 2023 in St. John’s, N.L.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the Titan submersible was owned and operated by an American company, the ship that took the submersible out to the Titanic wreck site was Canadian. The Polar Prince will be able to provide investigators with vital information. </p>
<p>The Government of Canada will likely work closely with the United States, as it did in 1995 when negotiations began between the two countries to safeguard Titanic by introducing laws to prevent the wreck site from being looted. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/gc-international-section/rms-titanic-international-agreement">formalized agreement</a>, which includes the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France came into effect in 2019.</p>
<h2>Preventing future disasters</h2>
<p>Recommendations about how to avoid future disasters are forthcoming. Some have already been offered up. Charles Haas, the president of the Titanic Historical Society, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/uk-news/2023/06/23/titanic-society-calls-for-titan-inquiry-to-examine-vessels-design-and-safety-systems/">said the wreck of the Titanic should now be declared off-limits</a> to tourist submersibles.</p>
<p>While I understand and concur with his view, the issue isn’t so much about who dives to the Titanic, but how they get there. Diving should not happen unless crew and passenger safety is paramount. </p>
<p>While Rush was focused on his submersible’s flawed design, he overlooked the biggest rule of all: Keep your crew safe. In his blind quest for innovation, he failed to prioritize the safety of himself and his passengers.</p>
<p><a href="https://formac.ca/product/titanic-lives">As I wrote more than a decade ago</a>, “the public’s lust for all things Titanic isn’t likely to die down any time soon.” The <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/titanic-submarine-lost-oceangate-expeditions">Titanic tourism industry is a lucrative business</a>. But the bottom line remains: If anyone is to dive to the wreck they need to do so safely. No one’s life is worth the risk.</p>
<p>The way forward is more oversight. At present, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9788471/titan-sub-implosion-deep-sea-regulations/">regulating deep-sea exploration in international waters</a> is challenging. But there is a possibility for governing bodies like the United Nations International Maritime Organization to take action to prevent future disasters like this from occurring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208420/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Rondeau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Titan submersible implosion shares similarities with two other historic disasters: the Titanic and the Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole.Rob Rondeau, PhD Student and Marine Archaeologist, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2083532023-06-23T15:00:29Z2023-06-23T15:00:29ZDanger, prestige and authenticity draw thrill-seekers to adventure tourism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533588/original/file-20230622-17-swcukb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C19%2C770%2C512&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Titan submersible imploded on a dive to visit the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-undated-photo-shows-tourist-submersible-belongs-to-news-photo/1258873535?adppopup=true">Ocean Gate / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The tragic news of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/22/us/titanic-missing-submarine">destruction of the Titan submersible</a> has brought attention to the thrilling, dangerous and expensive world of extreme tourism. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/hrsm/faculty-staff/smith_scott.php">researcher who studies hospitality and tourism management</a>, I pay attention to the trends in tourism and study ways in which organizations like theme parks and resorts operate and change over time.</p>
<p>Tourists are generally seeking more authentic experiences that occur without prescribed paths or known endpoints. Technology can often make the extreme environments of adventure tourism more safe, but at the bottom of the ocean, the vacuum of space or the cold of a mountain summit the consequences of failure can be high.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people sitting in an open jeep near a lion." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533590/original/file-20230622-19-jnvorn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Safaris allow tourists to see animals in their natural habitats and offer much more authentic experiences than a trip to the zoo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/tourists-photographing-male-lion-royalty-free-image/82999960?phrase=Safari+africa&adppopup=true">Martin Harvey/Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Adventure tourism as authentic tourism</h2>
<p>In recent years, there has been a trend in the tourism industry <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-7383(98)00103-0">toward authentic experiences</a>. More and more, people want to experience something unique and not in a preprogrammed or controlled setting. </p>
<p>An example of the difference between authentic and inauthentic tourism is the difference between a zoo and a safari. Zoos are built to allow large crowds of people to easily view unique and often dangerous animals. Zoos are typically a spectator experience and are very safe, but they offer little opportunity for visitors to interact with the animals.</p>
<p>A safari in Africa, by comparison, provides a much more authentic experience by removing a lot of the safety barriers between you and the animals. Most safaris bring a limited number of tourists, with guides who can provide closer interaction with the animals in their real environment. This, of course, also increases the risk for tourists, as the barriers and safety features found in a zoo don’t exist in the wild. The sense of danger that comes from authentic tourism often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-7383(00)00051-7">adds to the adventurous traveler’s experience</a>.</p>
<p>The final appeal of adventure tourism is the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797604057323">status or prestige of a dangerous, expensive trip</a>. Almost everyone can afford to visit a local zoo, whereas an African safari requires a level of spending that is a display of your status and income.</p>
<p>The same authenticity, danger and prestige apply to many types of adventure tourism, whether it is mountaineering, space tourism or trips to the bottom of the ocean.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A submersible on the surface of the water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533589/original/file-20230622-26366-t85ag1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Titan submersible utilized new materials and designs not common in other submarines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-undated-photo-shows-tourist-submersible-belongs-to-news-photo/1258873419?adppopup=true">Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Technology doesn’t always mean safety</h2>
<p>As technologies have improved, companies and tourists have been able to push the limits of safety for many activities. For example, over the past 30 years, roller coasters have gotten progressively taller, faster and more extreme to <a href="https://www.cnet.com/science/need-for-speed-how-coasters-are-getting-faster-and-scarier/">capture the attention of thrill-seekers</a>. These rides are able to maintain high levels of safety thanks to better engineering and technology.</p>
<p>The narrative that advanced technology provides safety in extreme situations typically helps to reassure tourists the activity they choose to engage in is safe. The reality is that any activity – whether it’s crossing the street or visiting the wreck of the Titanic – will always carry some level of risk. The problem is that many of these extreme activities take place in very dangerous environments and have incredibly small margins for error. When something does go wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic or, as with the case of the Titan submarine, fatal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rocket launching from the desert." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533591/original/file-20230622-23-qh6beu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Space companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been taking tourists to the edge of space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/blue-origin-new-shepard-rocket-launches-from-launch-site-news-photo/1239642821?adppopup=true">Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Prevalence and legal limits</h2>
<p>It is hard to get exact numbers on extreme tourism deaths per year, but when these sad events do occur, they typically <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/us/orlando-freefall-tower-dismantled-tyre-sampson/index.html">receive a lot of attention from the press</a>. As a tourism researcher, I follow these types of stories and feel comfortable saying that very few occur in the U.S.</p>
<p>In the U.S., there are <a href="https://www.trade.gov/us-travel-and-tourism-advisory-board">federal</a>, <a href="https://www.scprt.com/">state</a> and <a href="https://www.visitmarin.org/">local</a> tourism boards and agencies. More often than not, specialized agencies regulate activities most relevant to their areas of expertise – for example, the Federal Aviation Administration <a href="https://www.faa.gov/space">regulates space tourism</a>, and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/permitsandreservations.htm">national park</a> and state park agencies permit mountaineering in many places. These organizations generally promote tourism and safe practices, but no amount of regulation and oversight can absolutely guarantee anyone’s safety. And for many activities, like deep-water tours, there is no mandatory certification process. </p>
<p>Perhaps the best advice for people seeking authentic, thrilling experiences would be to use the idea of “buyer beware.” If you are choosing to engage in extreme tourism, ask questions about what safety procedures are in place for whatever activity you are choosing to do. And if you are not comfortable with the answers you get, move on to another company or activity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Advances in technology have allowed tourists to go to places and do things they couldn’t in the past. But in extreme environments, the consequences of failure are high.Scott Smith, Associate Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082012023-06-22T05:09:08Z2023-06-22T05:09:08ZWhy is extreme ‘frontier travel’ booming despite the risks?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533352/original/file-20230622-19-y4ayn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=87%2C11%2C3303%2C1770&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Berner/The Seattle Times/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world has watched in shock as rescue crews feverishly search for the <a href="https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html">Titan</a> submersible vehicle, which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/19/titanic-tourist-submarine-missing-north-atlantic">disappeared</a> while attempting to take tourists to view the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. </p>
<p>The horror of the incident raises questions as to why people engage in risky tourism activities in remote locations and whether there should be more restrictions to what adrenaline-seeking tourists can do. </p>
<h2>What is frontier tourism?</h2>
<p>This type of travel, known as “<a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/frontier-tourism-retracing-mythic-journeys">frontier tourism</a>”, is becoming big business. </p>
<p>The wider adventure tourism industry is already worth <a href="https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/adventure-tourism-market">billions of dollars</a> – and is growing quickly. Frontier tourism is an exclusive and extreme form of adventure travel. The trips are very expensive, aim to overstimulate the senses and go to the outer limits of our planet – the deep oceans, high mountains, polar areas – and even space.</p>
<p>Frontier tourism is not new; humans have explored remote locations for millennia. Pasifika people used the stars to navigate the oceans for migration and trade. Europeans sailed to the edges of what they believed to be a flat Earth. </p>
<p>In recent years, however, frontier tourism has attracted widespread attention thanks to the common occurrence of long queues on <a href="https://theconversation.com/70-years-after-the-first-ascent-of-everest-the-impact-of-mass-mountaineering-must-be-confronted-204270">Mount Everest</a>, the trending <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/Drake-Shake">TikTok phenomenon</a> of crossing the #DrakePassage in <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-100-000-tourists-will-head-to-antarctica-this-summer-should-we-worry-about-damage-to-the-ice-and-its-ecosystems-192843">Antarctica</a> and the rapid development of <a href="https://theconversation.com/virgin-galactics-use-of-the-overview-effect-to-promote-space-tourism-is-a-terrible-irony-206868">space tourism</a> for the wealthy.</p>
<p>The rise of travel content sharing on social media and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10548408.2021.2006858?journalCode=wttm20">revenge travel following COVID-19</a> have contributed to the surge in its popularity.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-100-000-tourists-will-head-to-antarctica-this-summer-should-we-worry-about-damage-to-the-ice-and-its-ecosystems-192843">More than 100,000 tourists will head to Antarctica this summer. Should we worry about damage to the ice and its ecosystems?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Why are we so obsessed with extreme forms of tourism?</h2>
<p>Risky activities release chemicals in the brain that can be addictive. Research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916594261001">suggests</a> engaging in risky tourism activities, such as scaling a high mountain, can bring about feelings of accomplishment and euphoria. Travellers report feeling alive and experiencing a sense of transformation. </p>
<p>Some are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2021.1897131">attracted</a> to the pristine, untouched and remote aspects of the locations that they visit. Furthermore, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/movies/james-cameron-titanic.html">element of fantasy</a> associated with imagining certain places or stories, like the movie Titanic, can be alluring.</p>
<p>Besides physical frontiers, there is also the <a href="https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/9781780642093.0111">thrill people get</a> at pushing the human body to its limits and facing one’s fears. Base-jumping, skydiving, bungee jumping and polar plunges are common examples of this. </p>
<p>In a slightly more mundane way, even tasting “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1356766709104271">scary food</a>” pushes tourists outside of their comfort zone and helps them <a href="https://www.insider.com/harvard-psychologist-why-wealthy-seek-high-risk-trips-titanic-space-2023-6">feel alive</a>. </p>
<p>Still others make extreme tourist journeys to follow in the <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496221216/">footsteps of their heroes</a>, such as those who travel to Antarctica to pay homage to explorer Ernest Shackleton. </p>
<p>Extreme and risky activities not only make participants feel euphoric, but they also convey status. When bucket lists are ticked off and experiences shared on social media, this brings bragging rights. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/from-awe-to-satisfaction-immediate-affective-responses-to-the-antarctic-tourism-experience/2B65FEDCEF9D7DEBB689C39C93549702">Research</a> suggests many travellers seek recognition for undertaking the first, longest or most extreme experiences possible.</p>
<p>But frontier tourism is clearly not for all. It is usually only accessible to a privileged few, as the tragic circumstances of the Titan highlight. Passengers onboard the vessel reportedly paid <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65953872">US$250,000</a> for the voyage.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/70-years-after-the-first-ascent-of-everest-the-impact-of-mass-mountaineering-must-be-confronted-204270">70 years after the first ascent of Everest, the impact of mass mountaineering must be confronted</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What are the impacts of frontier tourism?</h2>
<p>Beyond the unspeakable angst that friends and family must endure when things go wrong, there are many other impacts of this form of tourism. </p>
<p>This type of travel can create <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003219866-11/tourist-experiences-attention-products-seng-ooi">environmental harm and negatively impact local communities</a>. For example, after decades of mass mountaineering, the environmental <a href="https://theconversation.com/70-years-after-the-first-ascent-of-everest-the-impact-of-mass-mountaineering-must-be-confronted-204270">impact</a> on Mount Everest must be addressed. </p>
<p>And when mishaps do occur, the cost of search and rescue efforts can be massive and put rescue teams at great risk. The plight of frontier tourists are usually the focus of media reports, while emergency responders are often overlooked. </p>
<p>Recent efforts by sherpas such as <a href="https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81464765">Nimsdai Purja</a> are trying to overcome this issue. Through the Netflix documentary, 14 Peaks, he publicises the behind-the-scene preparations and heavy lifting work done by sherpas who guide and rescue tourists up Everest and other mountains.</p>
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<h2>Frontier tourism is not going away</h2>
<p>Despite tragedies like the Titan disappearance, tourists remain attracted to the quest for the most unique experiences in the most remote, uncharted places. </p>
<p>Tourists also increasingly feel able to embark on trips once perceived as too dangerous because technology and other innovations have ostensibly made them safer and more accessible. </p>
<p>In many instances that danger remains, but the commercial transaction <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2002.tb00213.x">strips away the perceived risks</a> involved. Marketing materials aim to sell “safe” adventures, with the risks are often listed in the fineprint. A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/11745398.2017.1286512">polar plunge</a> in Antarctica, for instance, is often marketed as safe because participants are attached to a tether and the swim time is limited to prevent hypothermia. </p>
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<p>Two decades ago, in forecasting the growth of space tourism, anthropologist Valene Smith <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02508281.2000.11014920">said</a> what tourists want, the industry will provide. This has become a truism, as the Titan voyages demonstrate. </p>
<p>The massive growth of frontier tourism could lead to even greater problems if the industry doesn’t respond in the right way. If travellers are going to expose themselves to extreme risks, whose responsibility is it, then, to ensure their safety and recovery should accidents occur? </p>
<p>Many tourism businesses and travel insurance companies make risks known to their guests. But regulations on disclosing risks differ between countries. These means travellers may have to evaluate the risks themselves, and this is fraught with danger if company standards are low.</p>
<p>One solution is frontier tourism might be best experienced in controlled and safe environments through <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2023.2224043">digital storytelling</a> or <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3348">augmented and mixed reality</a>. However, this may not be enough to satisfy the adrenaline junkies out there.</p>
<p>As the Titan incident illustrates, the unpredictable nature and unintended consequences of frontier tourism are very real things. While money can allow us to travel almost anywhere, it’s worth considering whether some places should just remain untouched, sacred and off limits completely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Hardy receives funding from the Australian Research Council to (LP 190101116) and the Dutch Research Council (NWA 1435.20.001) and Hurtigruten Australia who provide in-kind support for fieldwork.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Can Seng Ooi presently receives funding from the Australian Research Council to (LP 190101116). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hanne E.F. Nielsen receives funding from the Australian Research Council LP190101116, which also includes funding from partner organisation Intrepid Travel, and DP220103005; the Dutch Research Council (NWA.1435.20.001); and the Australian Antarctic Division. Hurtigruten Australia provide in-kind support for fieldwork.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph M. Cheer presently receives funding from the Australian Research Council (LP190100367) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (22K12588). He is also empanelled to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Private Sector Development Initiative (PSDI) for the Pacific Islands from which he receives funding. Joseph is Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council for the Future of Sustainable Tourism and board member of PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association).</span></em></p>Not only do risky activities make people feel euphoric, they also convey status. But should there be limits on what tourists can do?Anne Hardy, Associate Professor, Tourism and Society, University of TasmaniaCan Seng Ooi, Professor, University of TasmaniaHanne E F Nielsen, Senior lecturer, University of TasmaniaJoseph M. Cheer, Professor of Sustainable Tourism and Heritage | Co Chair - World Economic Forum Global Future Council on the Future of Sustainable Tourism, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082002023-06-22T04:49:31Z2023-06-22T04:49:31ZDisaster, opulence, and the merciless ocean: why the Titanic disaster continues to enthral<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533354/original/file-20230622-14002-235bwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1440%2C814&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Museums Greenwich</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The question on many minds this week is why did some of the world’s richest men risk death to venture to the bottom of the sea in a cold and cramped <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-missing-submersible.html">“experimental” submersible</a> for a chance to glimpse the wreck of the Titanic? </p>
<p>The “unsinkable” ship that sunk on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg is arguably the world’s most well-known boat. The Titanic is recognisable to more of the world’s population than, say, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria (Christopher Colombus’s fleet that launched the Spanish conquest of the Americas), or Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour (the tall ship that set in motion the British conquest of Australia). The Endeavour’s long-forgotten wreck was found scuttled off the coast of Rhode Island <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-captain-cooks-ship-endeavour-been-found-debate-rages-but-heres-whats-usually-involved-in-identifying-a-shipwreck-176363">just last year</a>.</p>
<p>The Titanic’s maiden voyage and calamitous end was one of the biggest news stories of 1912, and has continued to fascinate us ever since. The disaster inspired songs and multiple films in the twentieth century, including James Cameron’s 1997 epic romance, which long reigned as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#Timeline_of_highest-grossing_films">highest-grossing film of all time</a>. More recently, Titanic exhibitions that invite visitors to examine relics and <a href="https://titanicexhibition.com/nyc/#sec_instafeed">explore the ship’s recreated rooms have attracted huge crowds in New York, Seville and Hong Kong</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533355/original/file-20230622-21-4wmz21.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sinking of the Titanic as depicted in Untergang der Titanic, a 1912 illustration by Willy Stöwer.</span>
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<h2>Opulence and immigrants</h2>
<p>There are two reasons why we are so drawn to the Titanic, and why the super-rich are apparently willing to part with their money and even risk their lives to catch a glimpse of its broken hull.</p>
<p>The first is its opulence. The White Start Line that built the Titanic advertised the ship as the most luxurious ever to set sail. Wealthy passengers paid up to £870 for the privilege of occupying the Titanic’s most expensive and spacious first-class cabins. To put this 110-year-old money in perspective, when the first world war broke out in 1914, infantry soldiers in the British army were paid a basic salary of around £20 per year. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533358/original/file-20230622-17202-ffvzjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Titanic departing Southampton on 10 April 1912.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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<p>Titanic movies and exhibitions are popular because audiences enjoy the voyeurism of gazing on the ship’s beautiful furnishings, the stunning clothes worn by its rich and beautiful passengers, and their elaborate meals in fancy restaurants. First-class passengers feasted on <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/gastronomica/article-abstract/9/4/32/93511/The-Night-the-Good-Ship-Went-Down-Three-Fateful">multi-course dinners</a> with salmon, steak, and pâté de foie gras. Chefs in Australia and around the globe occasionally <a href="https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/things-to-do/titanic-dining-experience">recreate Titanic meals</a> for curious clients.</p>
<p>Hundreds of poor immigrant passengers, represented by Jack (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) in Cameron’s movie, were also aboard the Titanic. They lived in crowded quarters and enjoyed less thrilling meals such as boiled beef and potatoes. If their ilk were the only people on board the Titanic, the ship would arguably have faded quickly from memory.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/erAQ9LkftwA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>The power of the sea</h2>
<p>The fact the Titanic was touted as unsinkable also adds to its allure. The ship, whose name evoked its massive size, was engineered to cheat the ocean. When it departed England it symbolised man’s domination over nature. At the bottom of the Atlantic, it serves as a visceral reminder of the indomitable sea’s awesome power.</p>
<p>The same two factors - the excess of the voyage, and its defeat by the sea – are now driving the current global interest in the Titan submersible disaster. Few world events garner so much attention, including statements from Downing Street and the White House, and live news blogs from The New York Times and the Guardian.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-submersible-catastrophic-implosion-questions-remain-about-the-costs-and-ethics-of-rescuing-tourist-expeditions-208163">Titanic submersible 'catastrophic implosion': questions remain about the costs and ethics of rescuing tourist expeditions</a>
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<p>The Titan, like the Titanic, commands our attention because of its obscenely rich passengers, who each reportedly paid US$250,000 (or between four and five times the average US salary) to visit the wreck of the famous ship that battled the sea and lost. </p>
<p>And then there is the intriguing mystery and power of the sea. News outlets are publishing helpful graphics that try to teach our terrestrial brains to comprehend just how deep the ocean is, and how far below the sea’s surface the Titanic and possibly the Titan lie. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Titanic’s bow, photographed in June 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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<h2>The limits of human knowledge</h2>
<p>Last night I spied <a href="https://neal.fun/deep-sea/">Neal Argawal’s Deep Sea</a> website circulating on social media. The site allows viewers to scroll from the sea surface to the sea floor, diving down past images of various marine animals that inhabit different oceanic depths. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671237696331694081"}"></div></p>
<p>At 114 metres is an orca, and 332m marks the the deepest depth a human has ever reached using SCUBA gear. It takes a lot of scrolling to descend to the Titanic almost 4,000m below the waves. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/has-captain-cooks-ship-endeavour-been-found-debate-rages-but-heres-whats-usually-involved-in-identifying-a-shipwreck-176363">Has Captain Cook's ship Endeavour been found? Debate rages, but here's what's usually involved in identifying a shipwreck</a>
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<p>Besides gross income inequality, reflecting on the Titan and the Titanic invite us to confront just how little we can “see” of the sea in this age of mass surveillance. Not even the powerful US navy, assisted by the Canadian, UK and French governments, can muster the resources and technology required to locate, let alone rescue, the missing submersible. </p>
<p>As the sea seems to have swallowed yet another ship, we are reminded of limits of human knowledge and mastery over the ocean.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristie Patricia Flannery receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>What makes billionaires risk their lives to see the Titanic wreck?Kristie Patricia Flannery, Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2081872023-06-22T03:18:55Z2023-06-22T03:18:55ZAn expert explains what safety features a submersible should have<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533353/original/file-20230622-25-h20ew9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C34%2C785%2C513&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">OceanGate</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The oxygen supply of the missing Titan submersible is expected to run out today around 10am GMT, or 8pm AEST.</p>
<p>A frantic search continues for the Titan and its five occupants, with sonar buoys having recorded “banging” noises in the search area on Tuesday and Wednesday. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671372007110320128"}"></div></p>
<p>With the vessel’s fate yet to be determined, the general public is asking questions about the safety of such touristic endeavours.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/missing-titanic-sub-what-are-submersibles-how-do-they-communicate-and-what-may-have-gone-wrong-208100">Missing Titanic sub: what are submersibles, how do they communicate, and what may have gone wrong?</a>
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<h2>The context</h2>
<p>The context in which the Titan has disappeared is disturbing. Reports have come out <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/173802/missing-titanic-sub-faced-lawsuit-depths-safely-travel-oceangate">detailing court documents</a> from a 2018 case that show OceanGate, the company responsible for the Titan, fired employee David Lochridge after he expressed concerns about the submersible’s safety. </p>
<p>Lochridge disagreed with OceanGate about the best way to demonstrate the asset’s seaworthiness, and objected to OceanGate’s decision to perform dives without prior “non-destructive testing” to the vessel’s hull to prove its integrity.</p>
<p>Also in 2018, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/oceangate-titanic-missing-submersible.html">a letter sent</a> to OceanGate by the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee of the Marine Technology Society, signed by 38 experts, expressed reservations about the submersible’s safety. They <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/marine-technology-society-committee-2018-letter-to-ocean-gate/eddb63615a7b3764/full.pdf">said</a> the “[…] experimental approach adopted by OceanGate could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry”.</p>
<p>As we can see from these exchanges, the engineering and regulation of deep-sea submersibles remains somewhat uncharted territory. And since the Titan operates in international waters, it is technically <a href="https://time.com/6288552/what-is-submersible-titanic-tourist/">free from governance</a> by any single nation’s regulations. </p>
<p>In this case, most submersible designers would elect to have a classification society certify the vessel’s design. OceanGate made the conscious decision to refuse to do this for the Titan.</p>
<h2>Seaworthiness of submersibles</h2>
<p>When we talk about the “seaworthiness” of a marine vessel, we are essentially asking if it is fit for purpose, safe to operate, and compliant with the protection of the environment.</p>
<p>For the Titan, fitness for purpose could be summarised by the ability to safely launch from a mothership on the water’s surface, operate autonomously down to 4,000m (the approximate depth of the Titanic shipwreck), and resurface for recovery by the mothership after a dive of a few hours.</p>
<p>Safety to operate would mean no equipment is damaged and no passengers are prone to injury (or worse) while onboard. And protection of environment means the submersible would not have any significant impact on its surroundings, such as through pollution or disturbing the ecosystem.</p>
<p>However, this is the blue-sky scenario. Deep-sea submersibles operate in a hostile environment, and things can go wrong.</p>
<h2>Pressure resistance</h2>
<p>Submersibles and submarines are shaped the way they are because spheres and cylinders are geometrically more resistant to crushing pressures.</p>
<p>Instead of operating in a breathable atmosphere of 1 bar, the Titan would have to withstand 370 bars of pressure in seawater at the depth of the Titanic. Any defect in the hull could result in instantaneous implosion.</p>
<p>So what is the threshold below which an “out-of-circularity” geometry becomes a defect? </p>
<p>Industries using underwater vessels at depths of a few hundred metres will often use steel hulls, which usually have an out-of-circularity threshold below 0.5% of the vessel’s diameter. Would that criterion be safe enough for the pressure hull of the Titan at 4,000m? </p>
<p>The Titan is made of a composite carbon fibre-titanium hull. It is extremely complicated to design and structurally assess these materials, compared to metallic material only. One can assume this is why OceanGate equipped the Titan with a “real-time hull health monitoring system”. </p>
<p>It’s unclear if the system actually measures the stresses with strain gauges in the hull, or if it is (<a href="https://www.insider.com/titanic-submersible-only-warns-milliseconds-before-hull-failure-fired-executive-2023-6">as Lochridge warned</a>) an acoustic analysis that would only alert people about imminent problems “often milliseconds before an implosion”.</p>
<p>Safety for pressure hull integrity requires analysing various failure modes, before determining a safety coefficient for each mode, depending on the deep diving depth aimed at.</p>
<p>After the design is verified (through calculations), real-world validation should occur in two steps.</p>
<p>Non-destructive testing should be done on the manufactured pressure hull, to check the preciseness of its geometry and any out-of-circularity aspects.</p>
<p>Then, actual dives (ideally unmanned) should be carried out at progressively increasing depths, with stress gauges used to measure actual values against predictions. We don’t know whether the Titan underwent such tests.</p>
<h2>Back-ups and redundancy</h2>
<p>In designing the functional architecture and selecting equipment, a designer would consider a number of “what if” scenarios to recover from:</p>
<ul>
<li> what if main power sources fail?</li>
<li> what if my computer crashes and the pilot loses control?</li>
<li> what if my main communication system fails?</li>
<li> how can the submersible signal to the mothership there is a problem?</li>
</ul>
<p>These scenarios commit the naval architects to ensure what’s called a safety SFAIRP (so far as is reasonably practicable). This involves not only mitigating the consequences of an accident, but also preventing it from happening.</p>
<p>In practical terms, it means having: </p>
<ul>
<li>a reserve of oxygen (such as while waiting for a rescue party)</li>
<li>reliable main power sources <em>and</em> back-up systems</li>
<li>another power source (such as hydraulic) in case of power loss – this would help, for example, to release safety leads to get positive buoyancy and rise back to the surface. </li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these systems would need a specific verification (theoretical) and validation (tests) for the specific environment.</p>
<p>Commercial off-the-shelf equipment can potentially fit onboard, if a demonstration of fitness for purpose is made for various scenarios. However, most of the external components (because of crushing pressure) and safety systems would warrant custom design. </p>
<p>According to reports, the Titan was using certain “off-the-shelf” equipment, but it’s difficult to say whether this was certified for its intended use at these depths.</p>
<h2>Safety systems</h2>
<p>In the Titan’s case, a tether with the mothership would have ensured instant two-way communication and a higher data exchange rate. But these cables can get entangled with potential hazards at a shipwreck site. </p>
<p>As such, tethers are mostly used for unmanned vehicles; manned submersibles prefer to trust the pilot. Also, GPS, portable satellite phones and automatic identification systems can’t be used underwater. These tools use electromagnetic waves that don’t propagate deep underwater (although they could be used on the surface).</p>
<p>Some submarines are equipped with a distress beacon, the equivalent of an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB). This can be released at the captain’s order, or via a “dead-man” switch; if the pilot responds to a test at regular intervals, a sudden lack of response leads the system to assume the crew is incapacitated.</p>
<p>Hopefully, the “banging” sounds that have been reported are the Titan’s crew and passengers banging against the pressure hull every 30 minutes. This is a technique taught to military submarine crew when grounding on the sea floor. </p>
<p>A high-frequency acoustic pinger would be even more efficient, as this would provide directional accuracy to home onto a distressed submersible.</p>
<p>There are a number of situations that can unfold on the surface too, in the case that the Titan has floated its way up. Even if has (or will do so), the crew and passengers can’t open the vessel’s bolted hatch. They would likely have to continue to contend with the potentially fouled atmosphere inside.</p>
<p>Further complicating matters is the Titan’s white colour, which would make it harder to spot in the foaming sea. This is why floating assets detected from above are usually in orange or yellow shades allowing higher visibility.</p>
<h2>The future of deep-sea submersibles</h2>
<p>Hopefully, the crew and passengers of the Titan will be rescued. But if the worst happens, forensic examination will inevitably look into whether the Titan met the basic thresholds to demonstrate seaworthiness.</p>
<p>Although various classification societies propose a set of rules for commercial submarines and submersibles, opting to follow these rules remains a voluntary process (which the asset’s insurer usually pushes for). </p>
<p>It’s time to acknowledge that going deep is as complex, if not more complex, than going into space – and that ensuring the safety of submersibles ought to be more than a matter of choice.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-submersible-catastrophic-implosion-questions-remain-about-the-costs-and-ethics-of-rescuing-tourist-expeditions-208163">Titanic submersible 'catastrophic implosion': questions remain about the costs and ethics of rescuing tourist expeditions</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Fusil is affiliated with the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and Engineers Australia</span></em></p>Most submersible designers would elect to have a classification society certify a vessel’s design. OceanGate made the conscious decision to refuse to do this for the Titan.Eric Fusil, Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2081632023-06-21T22:51:54Z2023-06-21T22:51:54ZTitanic submersible ‘catastrophic implosion’: questions remain about the costs and ethics of rescuing tourist expeditions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533315/original/file-20230621-23-8fpk5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C244%2C5607%2C3786&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The vessel Polar Prince towing OceanGate Expeditions submersible vessels from St. John's, N.L., as it leaves to tour the Titanic wreck site on May 29, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/21/titanic-sub-timeline-titan-submersible-missing-vessel">that debris found on the seafloor</a> was identified as belonging to the Titan, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-missing-titanic-tourist-sub-explained/">the OceanGate submersible that had disappeared on June 18</a>. Teams from different countries — including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany — were conducting search missions under a very tight timeline. </p>
<p>The discovery, close to the site of the Titanic, indicates the end of search-and-rescue operations for the five people onboard, who were killed in a ‘<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/us/submersible-titanic-oceangate-search-thursday/index.html">catastrophic implosion</a>,’ according to the Coast Guard.</p>
<p>As one of the largest international marine search-and-rescue operations, the incident raised questions about risk management, search-and-rescue operations, costs and ethical aspects of responses.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671950254281818113"}"></div></p>
<h2>Ocean incidents</h2>
<p>A significant number of economic activities — including shipping, fishing and offshore oil and gas drilling — are conducted in marine environments. These activities can lead to occurrences of accidents and casualties of different types. </p>
<p>Annually, a large number of incidents happen in the Canadian marine environment. Between 2011 and 2020, <a href="https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/stats/marine/2021/ssem-ssmo-2021.html">284 occurrences were reported each year</a> that had an annual average of 15.6 fatalities during the same period. </p>
<p>These numbers suggest that relative to the huge number of marine activities and the number of incidents, conventional marine-based operations are relatively safe and the emergency responses to them are effective. </p>
<h2>An unusual situation</h2>
<p>The search-and-rescue operations <a href="https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html">for the Titan</a> have been proven to be unusual, as measured by the complexity, costs, time sensitivity and scale. Unlike search-and-rescue operations on the ground that can be undertaken by volunteers and with little or no equipment, marine search and rescue is a <a href="https://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/publications/search-rescue-recherche-sauvetage/sar-canada-res-eng.html">highly specialized operation</a>. </p>
<p>It requires high-tech equipment, tools, training, co-ordination and capacity. In the current case, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/missing-titanic-submersible-live-updates-rcna90315">the search area was not measured in square kilometres or miles</a> — rather, it was in cubic measurements (3D), because the vessel could have been anywhere around the surface, in shallow or deep waters, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/20/us/titanic-missing-submarine">or on the ocean floor</a>.</p>
<p>While there are capable teams with the needed equipment and training for most marine disasters, they are not sufficient to cover a large area with limited information or uncertainty about the situation. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Ctup4lQs5SP","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Operational outcomes</h2>
<p>This search operation was among the costliest in recent history. We need to wait to see how much of this cost will be covered by insurance, OceanGate or the public. </p>
<p>This event will generate significant discussions around the public burden of private risks and risk-taking behaviours, and how risks in certain areas are regulated. And it could count for about one-third of Canada’s annual average marine fatalities if it’s considered a Canadian incident.</p>
<p>Particularly, it will bring to the forefront questions about <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/extreme-travel-rescue-operations-are-expensive-and-who-pays-is-unclear/">balancing acceptable risks with available emergency response capacities</a>, including search-and-rescue. </p>
<h2>Risk assessments</h2>
<p>When embarking on risky operations, such as deep-sea touristic exploration, two elements need to be added to risk assessments: 1) Do we have adequate and timely internal and external capacity to handle a potential incident?; and 2) What are the total response costs of an incident? </p>
<p>While certain risky activities or operations may be acceptable based on a private assessment of risk, they may not be acceptable if we ponder these two aspects.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small submersible is seen underwater." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533316/original/file-20230621-27-kan0vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">OceanGate’s Titan submersible dives underwater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(OceanGate Expeditions via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, many conventional risk assessments, particularly in the private sector organizations, do not pay sufficient attention to available emergency response capacities. </p>
<p>When considering <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/business/titan-submersible-here-s-a-timeline-of-how-rescue-mission-is-unfolding-in-the-atlantic-ocean-news-296702">the Titan’s search-and-rescue operation</a>, it became clear this small emergency surpassed the capacity of the resources that were operating in the area.</p>
<p>Teams from other places and countries joined the effort, but it took several days for a unified command centre for search-and-rescue to take shape.</p>
<p>Conducting a survey of available emergency response capacities to risk assessments can make a significant difference in risk management and regulation.</p>
<p>Similarly, many current risk assessments do not fully include emergency response costs in their calculations. While it is not a major consideration for many regular daily activities and operations because the emergency response is within regular possibilities, certain operations — particularly on remote marine environments — ought to add these costs into their risk assessment. </p>
<p>In doing so, risks may become more or less acceptable in terms of mitigation policies and regulations. Incorporating these aspects into risk assessments and regulations could help ensure that private operators provide additional safety and risk mitigation measures and assume responsibility for incurred costs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Asgary does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A team of rescuers has located debris from the Titan, indicating the end of search-and-rescue efforts. Risky undertakings need to assess the cost and capacity of any potential rescue needs.Ali Asgary, Professor, Disaster & Emergency Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies & Director, CIFAL York, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2081002023-06-20T07:07:21Z2023-06-20T07:07:21ZMissing Titanic sub: what are submersibles, how do they communicate, and what may have gone wrong?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532857/original/file-20230620-15-jh2y1f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C34%2C1888%2C1043&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">OceanGate</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An extensive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65953872">search and rescue operation</a> is underway to locate a commercial submersible that went missing during a dive to the Titanic shipwreck.</p>
<p>According to the US Coast Guard, contact with the submersible was lost about one hour and 45 minutes into the dive, with five people onboard. The vessel was <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/titanic-submersible-search-oceangate-expeditions-vessel-missing-as-us-coast-guard-launches-search/9d7352d8-6a6d-4dc1-afac-ce07dc63cea3">reported overdue</a> at 9.13pm local time on Sunday (12.13pm AEST, Monday).</p>
<p>The expedition was being run by US company OceanGate as part of an eight-day trip with guests paying US$250,000 per head to visit the wreck site. As of <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/americas/live-news/titanic-submersible-missing-search-06-19-23/h_c2b5400daf8538d8717f50c619d762ac">Monday afternoon</a> (Tuesday morning in Australia), US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said the watercraft likely had somewhere between 70 and the full 96 hours of oxygen available to the passengers. </p>
<p>The Titanic’s wreck sits some 3,800 metres deep in the Atlantic, about 700km south of St John’s, Newfoundland. Finding an underwater vehicle the size of a small bus in this vast and remote expanse of ocean will be no small feat. Here’s what the search and rescue teams are up against. </p>
<h2>OceanGate’s Titan submersible goes missing</h2>
<p>Submersibles are manned watercraft that move in a similar fashion to submarines, but within a much more limited range. They’re often used for research and exploration purposes, including to search for shipwrecks and to document underwater environments. Unlike submarines, they usually have a viewport to allow passengers look outside, and outside cameras that provide a broader view around the submersible.</p>
<p>The missing submersible in question is an OceanGate <a href="https://oceangate.com/our-subs/titan-submersible.html">Titan</a> watercraft, which can take five people to depths of up to 4,000m. The Titan is about 22 feet (6.7m) in length, with speeds of about 3 knots (or 5.5km per hour). Although submersibles are often connected to a surface vessel by a tether, video and photos suggest the Titan was likely operating independently of the surface ship.</p>
<p>According to OceanGate’s website, the Titan is used “for site survey and inspection, research and data collection, film and media production, and deep-sea testing of hardware and software”. </p>
<p>It also has a “real-time hull health monitoring (RTM) system”. This would likely include strain gauges to monitor the health of the Titan’s carbon fibre hull. A strain gauge is a kind of sensor that can measure applied force and small deformations in material resulting from changes in pressure, tension and weight.</p>
<p>The Titan’s carbon fibre hull connects two domes made of composite titanium – a material that can withstand deep-sea pressures. At 3,800m below sea level (the depth of the Titanic) you can expect pressures about 380 times greater than the atmospheric pressure we’re used to on the surface of the earth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Several tube like shapes on a rectangular concrete platform underwater" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532840/original/file-20230620-23-c6k9lo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Titan on the launch platform underwater, awaiting a signal to commence the dive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://oceangate.com/gallery/gallery-titan.html#nanogallery/titangallery/0/4">OceanGate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Communication and rescue efforts</h2>
<p>The Titan would have had an acoustic link with its surface vessel, set up through a transponder (a device for receiving a sonar signal) on its end, and a transceiver (a device that can both transmit and receive communications) on the surface vessel. </p>
<p>This link allows for underwater acoustic positioning, as well as for short text messages to be sent back and forth to the surface vessel – but the amount of data that can be shared is limited and usually includes basic telemetry and status information. </p>
<p>The Titan is a battery-operated watercraft. Given it has lost all contact with its surface vessel, it may have suffered a power failure. Ideally, there would be an emergency backup power source (such as an independent battery) to maintain emergency and life support equipment – but it’s unclear if the missing vessel had any power backup on hand. </p>
<p>According to reports, at least two aircraft, a submarine and sonar buoys were being used to search for the vessel. The sonar buoys will be listening for underwater noise, including any emergency distress beacons that may have gone off.</p>
<p>One of the major challenges in the rescue effort will be contending with weather conditions, which will further shrink an already narrow search window.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark blue image with a tube like shape floating in the lower third" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532842/original/file-20230620-49349-cnzdk6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Titan commencing a dive to 4,000m underwater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://oceangate.com/gallery/gallery-titan.html#nanogallery/titangallery/0/1">OceanGate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What might have happened?</h2>
<p>In a best case scenario, the Titan may have lost power and will have an inbuilt safety system that will help it return to the surface. For instance, it may be equipped with additional weights that can be dropped to instantly increase its buoyancy and bring it back to the surface.</p>
<p>Alternatively, the vessel may have lost power and ended up at the bottom of the ocean. This would be a more problematic outcome. </p>
<p>The worst case scenario is that it has suffered a catastrophic failure to its pressure housing. Although the Titan’s composite hull is built to withstand intense deep-sea pressures, any defect in its shape or build could compromise its integrity – in which case there’s a risk of implosion. </p>
<p>Another possibility is that there may have been a fire onboard, such as from an electrical short circuit. This could compromise the vehicle’s electronic systems which are used for navigation and control of the vessel. Fires are a disastrous event in enclosed underwater environments, and can potentially incapacitate the crew and passengers.</p>
<p>Time is of the essence. The search and rescue teams will need to find the vessel before its <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230331121053/https://oceangateexpeditions.com/tour/titanic-expedition/">limited supplies</a> of oxygen and water run out.</p>
<p>There’s an ongoing debate in scientific circles regarding the relative merit of manned submersibles, wherein each deployment incurs a safety risk – and the safety of the crew and passengers is paramount. </p>
<p>Currently, most underwater research and offshore industrial work is conducted using unmanned and robotic vehicles. A loss to one of these vehicles might compromise the work being done, but at least lives aren’t at stake. In light of these events, there will likely be intense discussion about the risks associated with using these systems to support deep-sea tourism.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesian-submarine-found-what-might-have-happened-to-the-kri-nanggala-in-its-final-moments-159703">Indonesian submarine found: what might have happened to the KRI Nanggala in its final moments?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Williams works for the University of Sydney. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Integrated Marine Observing System and the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre for work related to the development and deployment of marine robotic systems. </span></em></p>An expert explains some of the best and worst case scenarios facing the missing commercial watercraft.Stefan B. Williams, Professor, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1991712023-02-07T19:04:33Z2023-02-07T19:04:33ZTitanic at 25: like the ship itself, James Cameron’s film is a bit of a wreck<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508561/original/file-20230207-21-4wnda9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C3%2C2035%2C852&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it was released 25 years ago, James Cameron’s Titanic was enormous. It made stars of its two leads, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Reviews overwhelmingly heaped praise not only on the technical aspects of the film but also the acting and storyline. </p>
<p>In 1997, Titanic was, in the oft-quoted line from the film, “king of the world!”</p>
<p>At the time we were all swept up in the romantic tale of Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater, the star-crossed lovers whose infatuation on the doomed ship ended when Jack made the ultimate sacrifice, freezing in the icy Atlantic to save his truly beloved. </p>
<p>But over the years, critics and audiences alike have re-examined the film and found, like the ship itself, it is a bit of a wreck.</p>
<p>When it was originally released, a <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/258048661/?clipping_id=97758112&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjI1ODA0ODY2MSwiaWF0IjoxNjc1MzQ2NDQ1LCJleHAiOjE2NzU0MzI4NDV9.zwnunz556NCc1QF_m4T6QFNTGu2W4b00ograrsGd8Fg">small</a> <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/175704135/?clipping_id=97762030&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE3NTcwNDEzNSwiaWF0IjoxNjc1MzQ2NTYxLCJleHAiOjE2NzU0MzI5NjF9.pkc0x_OXwU9EdMc-d95Q6-aXrCOMQf7Sf8ph9svWrv0">number</a> of <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97760857/titanic-1/">critics</a> deeply disliked Titanic.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/titanic/reviews?page=3&type=user">more and more</a> people are re-evaluating their originally positive response to the film and are changing their opinions. From the characters, to the story, to the ending, there are a number of issues with Titanic that appear questionable at best, and deeply unsettling at worst. </p>
<p>It’s even gone far enough that <a href="https://thetempest.co/2016/09/28/entertainment/5-reasons-titanic-is-the-worst-movie-ever/">some critics</a> are calling it the worst film ever made – but that may be taking it too far.</p>
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<h2>An unhealthy obsession</h2>
<p>At the beginning of the film, we find upper-class Rose being forced into marriage with “Cal” Hockley by her widowed mother, Ruth, to save the family fortune and keep their status in society. So unhappy with her situation, Rose decides to jump from the ship. She is rescued by the penniless drifter, Jack. </p>
<p>So begins the plot of the film as the pair constantly run and hide from the authorities to be together.</p>
<p>Jack’s relentless pursuit of Rose around the ship is obsessive. We learn virtually nothing about the character of Jack Dawson apart from him being a poor orphaned artist, he wants Rose, and he will do anything to have her – even though they’ve only known each other for a few days. </p>
<p>Is this a healthy relationship? </p>
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<p>Rose is only 17 years old and possibly too inexperienced to identify a stalker or manipulator. Influenced by Jack’s charm, Rose turns against her mother, fiancé and pretty much everyone else in her life. And how could she not? On board the Titanic, almost every wealthy and upper-class person is portrayed as a villain while the people in third class, or steerage, are shown as a salt-of-the-earth, decent and virtuous. Rose’s fiancé is at every turn just a mean, callous man who cares nothing for Rose or for anyone but himself.</p>
<p>Even when the ship is sinking, the officers on board discriminate against the steerage passengers, ensuring only the well-to-do board the lifeboats – just one of the many <a href="https://screenrant.com/titanic-james-cameron-historial-inaccuracies-right/">historical inaccuracies</a>. </p>
<p>All of the upper-class characters we meet on Titanic get little screen time, apart from when they are being desultory, cruel or malicious. They appear two-dimensional, lacking meaningful emotions.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-on-screen-why-a-night-to-remember-is-the-definitive-film-on-the-ship-181130">Titanic on screen – why A Night to Remember is the definitive film on the ship</a>
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<h2>True love?</h2>
<p>One of the main themes of the film, that true love goes on beyond death, also appears overly sentimental and simplistic in modern times. We understand young teens often lack maturity in relationships and often <a href="https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/love/young-love-can-be-a-confusing-emotion/">mistake</a> lust or infatuation for love. </p>
<p>Would Jack and Rose’s relationship have lasted if Jack had survived? He was broke with no visible means of support. She was 17. Their love affair is a fantasy of no responsibility while on board the ship. Where would it have gone in the real world?</p>
<p>This directs us to another issue. Rose survives the sinking and goes on to marry another man and have a family with children and grandchildren. However, when Rose dies at the end of the film her “spirit” descends to the wreck of the ship where she is reunited with the “love of her life” Jack. </p>
<p>Surely this is a slap in the face to her deceased husband and family. She lived her entire life with these people, yet the film ends up with Rose in the afterlife with someone she knew for a few days.</p>
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<h2>Filled with holes</h2>
<p>Often, critiquing films with modern sensibilities can be unfair. However, Titanic includes a fair number of issues that, even considered with the social mores of the time in which it was made, appear problematic. </p>
<p>This does not take away from the enjoyment many people have gained from the film over the years, and its technical brilliance. But it does give increased weight to the critics who spoke against the film in 1997. </p>
<p>Like the ship itself, the film Titanic is a relic of a different time. Revisiting it can make you wonder why you never noticed the holes in it in the first place.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-at-25-how-james-cameron-captured-1990s-anxieties-with-pure-golden-age-hollywood-style-196918">Titanic at 25: how James Cameron captured 1990s anxieties with pure golden-age Hollywood style</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Sparkes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1997 we were all swept up in the romantic tale – but the film doesn’t stand up to scrutiny today.Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer (Media Studies and Production), University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1969182022-12-21T15:11:58Z2022-12-21T15:11:58ZTitanic at 25: how James Cameron captured 1990s anxieties with pure golden-age Hollywood style<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502225/original/file-20221220-5862-7o5ozu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C0%2C4179%2C2822&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">James Cameron poses during a promotional event for Titanic 3D.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://epaimages.com/search.pp?flush=1&multikeyword=titanic%20movie&startdate=&enddate=&metadatafield44=0&autocomplete_City=&metadatafield5=">Franck Robichon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Titanic (1997) arrived as disaster films were experiencing a comeback. Compared to the apocalypses visited on the world in Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1997) or Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996), sinking a single ship may seem like small fry. </p>
<p>But James Cameron’s film played on the same worries about humanity’s fragility in the face of overwhelming forces (and the hubris of our technological prowess) that many films of the 1990s were exploring.</p>
<p>And yet, despite using pioneering techniques (computer animated figures, virtual environments), Titanic structurally harks back to older models of film making. </p>
<p>For all the film shares with other late-1990s blockbusters, as well as disaster movies of the 1970s, the genres Titanic most aligns with are from decades earlier still.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Titanic (1997).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Titanic’s cinematic catastrophe reflected the pre-millennium anxieties that abounded towards the end of the century, from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1163/157361200X00032">millenarianism</a> (the fear that the year 2000 would bring about the end of days) to more mundane worries about the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401298000437">millennium bug</a>.</p>
<p>In his 2016 documentary, Hypernormalisation, filmmaker Adam Curtis interprets the spate of late 1990s Hollywood disaster films as a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/hypernormalisation">“dark foreboding”</a> His memorable movie montage, set to <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiGxKHFvYr8AhXRglwKHWt6AtoQFnoECBYQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmusic%2Fmusicblog%2F2016%2Foct%2F30%2Fsuicide-dream-baby-dream-bruce-springsteen-adam-curtis-american-honey&usg=AOvVaw2dqCGoJxFKbJh5-iesOfjP">Suicide’s Dream Baby Dream</a>, of upturned faces gawping at oncoming obliteration does not include Titanic. But, the film’s Edwardian setting aside, it would have fit right in.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vlxGtKw2KAA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hypernormalisation’s disaster movie montage (2016).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Titanic is explicitly structured as a microcosm of wider society. The story takes Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (<a href="https://theconversation.com/dicaprios-documentary-calls-for-a-green-future-but-his-vision-isnt-radical-enough-68066">Leonardo DiCaprio</a>) to all ends of the ship, from the first class dining room, through steerage class in the lower deck, to the cargo hold and even the infernal engine rooms. James Cameron crammed a world into his giant floating metaphor – then sent it to its destruction.</p>
<p>The director had already considered the threat of worldwide apocalypse in his Cold War era <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjLlsWZvor8AhWFY8AKHZujDfgQFnoECBIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fscience-fiction-helps-us-deal-with-science-fact-a-lesson-from-terminators-killer-robots-50249&usg=AOvVaw0qZaW4U1IZfcCDCqA0VsYJ">Terminator</a> (1984) and The Abyss (1989). </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio stand arm in arm on the red carpet. He's in a black tuxedo and she wears a lace black dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502179/original/file-20221220-26-d0pk4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Classic movie stars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/18jan98-actor-leonardo-dicaprio-actress-kate-93596233">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the historical setting, Cameron imbues his film with the feel of epic science fiction. He wows audiences and characters alike with the technological marvel of Titanic, the ship and the film, as it heads towards its doom.</p>
<p>Yet for all of the movie’s end-of-millennium unease, the scale of Titanic’s production in its narrative, budget and run time most clearly recalls the <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/movie-roadshows/">roadshow pictures</a> of the 1950s and 1960s. These blockbuster productions were designed to wring the maximum experience from films, deploying widescreen formats, new colour film processes, stereo sound and extensive spectacular visual effects.</p>
<p>Roadshow pictures encompassed historical and biblical extravaganzas, lavish broadway musicals and other grand productions. Charging premium ticket prices and playing exclusively in upscale theatres, they featured overtures and intermissions with run times designed to justify their expense.</p>
<p>Titanic’s runtime is over three hours, but the ship does not hit the iceberg until 90 minutes in. In this manner the film resembles such <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2015/12/9-landmark-cinematic-roadshows-that-paved-the-way-for-the-hateful-eight-42979/">roadshow epics</a> as the nearly three hour musical, The Sound of Music (1964). Though remembered as a film about the Von Trapp family fleeing the Nazis, it is – for the first half – a light musical comedy in which Nazis feature little beyond some mild foreshadowing.</p>
<h2>The woman’s film and the final girl</h2>
<p>Framing scenes set around modern exploration of Titanic’s shipwreck aside, Titanic’s first hour and a half largely foregrounds Rose, the teenage daughter of a wealthy American family.</p>
<p>Rose struggles against the oppressive expectations of her family, especially her mother. In this regard she initially resembles the heroine of the “woman’s film”, a “phantom genre” name coined by <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo25144826.html">film critic Molly Haskell</a> to describe those golden age films which aimed to appeal to the fears and fantasies of an adult female audience.</p>
<p>With its plot of escape from the cosseting of a traditional marriage (Rose chafes against etiquette, family duty, traditional gender roles and even her clothing) Titanic replicates the woman’s film for the first 90 minutes. That is, until Rose’s world is overturned – and then destroyed – by the slowly sinking ship.</p>
<p>This disaster transforms Rose into a version of what professor of American film <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691166292/men-women-and-chain-saws">Carol Clover</a> calls the “final girl”. </p>
<p>More common to horror films, the final girl is the plucky tomboy who survives the onslaught wrought by the monster. She was an archetype familiar to Cameron, having co-created Sarah Connor for the Terminator franchise and Ellen Ripley for Aliens (1986).</p>
<p>In the path Titanic set for the technological, digitally powered film making that went on to dominate 21st century production, it looked forward to the new millennium. But with its subject matter, structure and archetypes, Titanic kept one watchful eye firmly in the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Pank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>25 years on from the release of James Cameron’s epic, Titanic, a film expert reflects on how the late-Nineties blockbuster explored the anxieties of the new Millennium.Dylan Pank, Senior Teaching Fellow, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1847872022-06-16T12:42:27Z2022-06-16T12:42:27ZHow Iceberg Alley got its name and why it may be under threat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468819/original/file-20220614-26-e9f42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C26%2C3567%2C2338&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A large iceberg passes near Ferryland, an hour south of St. John's, Nfld., in April 2017</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Daly</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-iceberg-alley-got-its-name-and-why-it-may-be-under-threat" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Iceberg Alley, the stretch of coast ranging from Labrador to Newfoundland, is the southernmost region of the northern hemisphere where one can regularly see icebergs. But hurry up! As the planet continues to warm, Iceberg Alley may soon lose its name.</p>
<p>Iceberg sightseeing is a common — and much-anticipated — activity in Newfoundland. Every spring, locals and visitors brave the region’s damp and chilly weather — it’s one of the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45229-6_2">foggiest places on the planet</a> — to scrutinize the horizon for large white objects or embark on boat tours, hoping that luck will be on their side. </p>
<p>But with iceberg counts ranging from <a href="https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0301">zero to more than 2,000</a> per year, booking a trip in advance to see these 10,000-year-old blocks of ice can be a gamble. </p>
<h2>10,000-year-old ice</h2>
<p>Every year, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2013GL059010">hundreds of billions of tonnes of ice</a>, equivalent to more than 100 million Olympic pools of water, once melted, is shed from Greenland’s glaciers into the ocean. This phenomenon is called calving. </p>
<p>The bulk of the ice calving from Greenland’s glaciers form icebergs. While about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL070718">10-50 per cent</a> of these icebergs melt directly in Greenland’s fjords, the majority are carried away by ocean currents.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A map of the North Atlantic Ocean showing the flow of icebergs from Greenland to the coast of Newfoundland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468815/original/file-20220614-21-u1jaic.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The icebergs that arrive in Newfoundland calve from the west coast of Greenland and follow ocean currents to the south. Data: General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_data/version_20141103/">(Frédéric Cyr)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Greenland ice sheet is the result of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.02.007">thousands of years of snow accumulation</a> that has reached a thickness of more than one kilometre. The pressure that comes from the enormous weight transforms the snow into ice. The same pressure pushes the glaciers — rivers of ice funnelled by numerous fjords — towards the ocean where they calve and form icebergs. </p>
<p>A subset of these icebergs, mostly originating from the west coast of Greenland, will reach Newfoundland. While these icebergs can live for as long as a decade, those reaching Newfoundland are generally <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077676">one to two years old</a>.</p>
<h2>Sinking of the Titanic</h2>
<p>The most famous of these icebergs is probably the one that sank the Titanic just south of the tip of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in 1912. That year was <a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-twist-1912-wasnt-a-bad-year-for-icebergs-after-all-25621">not an abnormal one for icebergs</a>, with 1,038 icebergs reported. Following this tragedy, in 1913, the <a href="https://www.mycg.uscg.mil/News/Article/3028040/international-ice-patrol-11-decades-of-monitoring-the-northern-atlantic-waters/">International Ice Patrol</a>, operated by the U.S. Coast Guard on behalf of several maritime nations, was created to monitor iceberg dangers for ships in the North Atlantic.</p>
<p>The International Ice Patrol’s <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/G10028">annual count of the number of icebergs that slip south of 48 degrees north</a> provides the longest and most reliable time series of icebergs in Newfoundland. In an average year, nearly <a href="https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0301">800 icebergs</a> are expected to cross the boundary, which lies just north of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Graphic showing the high variability in the number of observed icebergs over the past 122 years." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468842/original/file-20220614-8082-bt1kez.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Number of icebergs observed, 1900-2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Frédéric Cyr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These annual counts are extremely variable and affected by the climate of the North Atlantic. The 1980s and ‘90s were an especially cold period in the region, and more than 1,500 icebergs were observed during some of those years, with a record high of 2,202 in 1984. More recently, 1,515 icebergs were spotted in 2019, a year characterized with <a href="https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/ResDocs-DocRech/2021/2021_017-eng.html">colder than normal spring temperatures</a> and immediately following another cold period in the mid-2010s.</p>
<p>But these numbers decrease drastically during years characterized by milder winters and an early spring. This occurred in 2010 and 2021, where only one iceberg was observed; in 2011, which saw two icebergs; and in 2013, where 13 icebergs were recorded. Only two years, 1966 and 2006, in the 122-year time series have reported no icebergs journeying south of 48 degrees north.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-twist-1912-wasnt-a-bad-year-for-icebergs-after-all-25621">Titanic twist: 1912 wasn’t a bad year for icebergs after all</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An uncertain future</h2>
<p>With the planet warming up as a result of anthropogenic climate change, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1855-2">Greenland ice sheet is losing mass</a>. While this may suggest that more icebergs will calve into the ocean, it is far from guaranteed that this will lead to more sightseeing opportunities in Newfoundland. And the numbers may lie, as improvements in iceberg-detecting technology may be responsible for an <a href="https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/iip/2018_Annual_Report_FINAL.pdf">apparent upward trend in counts</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial view of a glacier with large and small chunks of ice floating in the water at its foot, with rocky slopes on either side of the narrow fjord." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468822/original/file-20220614-15-33xmz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A glacier calves icebergs into a fjord off the Greenland ice sheet in southeastern Greenland in August 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/David Goldman)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The environmental parameters that control the number of icebergs in Newfoundland in a given year remain unclear. However, it appears that a warmer climate definitely leads to fewer or simply no icebergs at all in Newfoundland. </p>
<p>For example, when looking at the region’s three warmest years on record — 1966, 2010 and 2021 — only <a href="https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/ResDocs-DocRech/2022/2022_040-eng.html">zero, one and one icebergs</a> were reported. These outliers may well become the new norm as climate projections suggest with a high level of confidence that the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/">frequency and severity of extreme events</a>, such as an anomalously warm year, will increase in the future.</p>
<p>While the Newfoundland iceberg sightseeing tourism industry may well have benefited from a succession of exceptional iceberg seasons linked to a recent rebound in cold ocean conditions in the mid-2010s, its future is less certain. </p>
<p>Will the Iceberg Alley lose its name? It would be unfortunate, but it is possible. For the moment there is still time to enjoy these 10,000-year-old remnants of the past. So hurry up before it’s too late!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frédéric Cyr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Between zero and 2,000 icebergs reach Newfoundland each spring, but the warming climate could see an end to Iceberg Alley.Frédéric Cyr, Adjunct professor, Physical Oceanography, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1811302022-04-13T11:50:30Z2022-04-13T11:50:30ZTitanic on screen – why A Night to Remember is the definitive film on the ship<p>It has been 110 years since the sinking of <a href="https://theconversation.com/titanic-twist-1912-wasnt-a-bad-year-for-icebergs-after-all-25621">the Titanic</a>. Over 1,500 passengers and crew perished in one of the deadliest maritime disasters during peacetime. The story of the ship and its passengers has long since taken on mythic proportions and has been committed to film many times. James Cameron’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/">clunky offering from 1997</a> might come to mind first, but I recommend going straight to Roy Ward Baker’s highly regarded A Night to Remember from 1958 for a more measured appraisal of the disaster.</p>
<p>The Titanic fascinates filmmakers because it has everything a dramatist could ever want: heroism, sacrifice, decency and grace under pressure. Cowardice and self-preservation are there, too. </p>
<p>The ship offers up a microcosm of society in which class divisions are given greater urgency when life and death hang in the balance. The luxuriously appointed liner symbolised a new age of prosperity keenly anticipated by passengers heading for the New World. Both Baker and Cameron capture this optimistic atmosphere in the early scenes of their films: Irish jigs below deck and fine dining with the stuffed shirts above.</p>
<p>A Night to Remember was adapted by Eric Ambler from <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-may-22-me-lord22-story.html">Walter Lord’s</a> probing 1955 non-fiction account of events. This is still considered one of the definitive accounts of the disaster. </p>
<p>Ambler, better known as a writer of <a href="https://ericamblerbooks.com/">spy fiction</a>, crafted an incisive screenplay lacking in sentimentality. He achieves a balance between the fictional characters and the real people caught up in the disaster. </p>
<p>The plight of the fictional Lucas family and the devoted newlyweds who refuse to be separated are finely judged and allow the legendary tales of real-life characters to breathe. Well-known, real-life figures, such as <a href="https://www.biography.com/historical-figure/molly-brown">the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown</a> and Benjamin Guggenheim (who elects to go down with the ship in white tie as a gentleman), are given just the right amount of screen time. The miraculous true story of drunken baker <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/titanic/stories/charles-joughin.htm">Charles Joughin</a> who survived against all odds is mined for unexpectedly comedic potential.</p>
<p>Cameron’s screenplay, which he wrote himself, covers much of the same material but it fails to achieve the same sense of balance. Everything is thrown off kilter by the preoccupation with the romance between Jack (played by Leonard DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet), and her jilted fiance Cal (Billy Zane). Although Cameron uses the romantic triangle to expose the iniquities facing steerage passengers in the impending disaster – many of whom were trapped below deck in their quarters – the trajectory of the love story takes a preposterous turn when Cal pursues the lovers through the ship firing his pistol indiscriminately. Floodwater is gushing through the decks, people are fleeing in all directions, and yet Cal still finds it necessary to thwart Jack and Rose.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dPAqttGXFaU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>Less is More</h2>
<p>While Cameron builds his story around the huge draw of “king of the world” Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the chief virtues of Baker’s film is the casting of Kenneth More in the key role of Second Officer Charles Lightoller. Lightoller’s real-life role in the evacuation of the ship has been <a href="https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/charles-herbert-lightoller.html">widely documented</a> and is a source of much controversy due to his strict adherence to the “women and children first” code. </p>
<p>Baker’s focus on Lightoller gives the film a moral centre and is based on eyewitness accounts as documented by Walter Lord. Lightoller takes charge of the evacuation on the port side. He admonishes people to “get a hold of yourselves, remember yourselves” when the situation gets out of hand. Once the ship sinks, he is shown taking charge of an overturned lifeboat and he instructs the men to shift their weight to avoid swells. However, Lightoller comes off badly in Cameron’s epic. In the late 1950s, he is portrayed as gallant, but by the late 1990s, he is portrayed as less than competent.</p>
<p>Cameron’s focus shifts to First Officer William Murdoch (Ewan Stewart), another real-life character who was responsible for launching many lifeboats and saving hundreds of lives. But he embellishes unnecessarily – at one point Murdoch is shown taking a bribe from Cal for a place on a boat. This is a complete fabrication which smears the good name of a heroic man. Cameron <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12298861.titanic-hero-apology-cuts-no-ice-film-executives-visit-too-little-too-late/">later acknowledged</a> that he should have taken more care in the writing of this important historical figure.</p>
<h2>‘Lump in the throat’ moments</h2>
<p>The Titanic story moves us – that’s why we keep returning to it in popular culture. </p>
<p>Cameron’s film has one stand out emotional sequence revolving around the famous story of the musicians who continued playing stoically to the end. Cameron shows them performing the hymn Nearer, My God, To Thee. The camera then moves effortlessly from the Captain in an apparent state of shock entering the wheelhouse, to designer Thomas Andrews fixing the clock in the smoking room, to an old couple embracing in bed, and finally an Irish mother from steerage soothing her children with a bedtime story. </p>
<p>The sequence heralds the ship’s final plunge into the icy waters. This is deeply affecting stuff. From there, Cameron ratchets up the horror of the situation with desperate scenes of passengers and crew succumbing in the rapidly rising water. <a href="https://thatshelf.com/a-night-to-remember-the-ultimate-titanic-film/#:%7E:text=Most%20suggest%20it%20was%20the,incorporating%20it%20into%20his%20version.">Cameron acknowledged</a> that his inspiration for the sequence was a similar section from A Night to Remember.</p>
<p>A Night to Remember was shot entirely at <a href="https://pinewoodgroup.com/pinewood-today/our-heritage">Pinewood Studios in the UK</a> – and it would fail to recoup its budget. Titanic (1997), on the other hand, was an enormous commercial success, grossing over <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3698624001/">US$2.2 billion</a> (£1.7 billion) at the box office. It would also cement Di Caprio and Winslet as major stars and win a slew of awards. But for those seeking the definitive account of the disaster, it is Baker’s film that captures the scope and scale of the tragedy with the most tact and sincerity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gill Jamieson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The film based on Walter Lord’s 1955 account is much more accurate than James Cameron’s epic.Gill Jamieson, Senior Lecturer in Film, Television & Cultural Studies, University of the West of ScotlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610422021-06-22T12:15:39Z2021-06-22T12:15:39ZExplorer Robert Ballard’s memoir finds shipwrecks and strange life forms in the ocean’s darkest reaches<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406217/original/file-20210614-72954-1ed6eir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1920%2C1072&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tube worms, anemones and mussels clustered near a hydrothermal vent on the Galapagos Rift.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/fHGagx">NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, Galapagos Rift Expedition 2011/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who doesn’t love a good story, especially one about amazing discoveries in Earth’s farthest reaches? Oceanographer, Navy veteran and explorer Robert D. Ballard has written a memoir, “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Into-the-Deep/Robert-D-Ballard/9781426220999">Into the Deep</a>,” that recounts many of his dramatic discoveries, including locating the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/titanic-nuclear-submarine-scorpion-thresher-ballard">wreck of the luxury ocean liner Titanic</a> in 1985. </p>
<p>Ballard, now 79, is known for designing and using many types of vehicles for underwater exploration. His most important scientific contributions include <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.190.4210.103">mapping regions of the mid-Atlantic Ridge</a>, an underwater mountain chain that runs north-south through the Atlantic ocean, and locating <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html">hydrothermal vents</a> in the eastern Pacific. These underwater hot springs form at cracks in the ocean’s crust, where superheated water jets upward from Earth’s interior. Finding them changed scientists’ thinking about the <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/feature/history-hydrothermal-vents/impacts/index.html">evolution of life on Earth</a> and the chemistry of the ocean. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7wGVijst8to?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robert Ballard explains the importance of exploring the world’s oceans.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ruUF3z4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">geoscientist who studies Earth’s oceans and climate</a> and first met Ballard when I worked at the <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/">Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution</a> in 1978. I’m keenly aware of his contributions to ocean science, as well as his work to <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_ballard_the_astonishing_hidden_world_of_the_deep_ocean?language=en">popularize ocean exploration and inspire people to become scientists</a>. “Into the Deep” captures much of what it’s like to do this work, including less glamorous aspects like raising money, building research teams and standing watch on deck for hours. Science, especially marine research, is not a solo effort – and the discovery of hydrothermal vents is a prime example. </p>
<h2>Mapping the seafloor</h2>
<p>In the early 1970s, when Ballard was doing his graduate work in marine geology and geophysics, scientists were still refining the basics of <a href="https://theconversation.com/plate-tectonics-new-findings-fill-out-the-50-year-old-theory-that-explains-earths-landmasses-55424">plate tectonics theory</a>. One key idea was that new ocean crust was created at spreading centers in the seafloor, where oceanic plates moved away from each other and magma from Earth’s interior welled up between them. </p>
<p>A 1972 study of a spreading center in the eastern Pacific, near the Galapagos Islands, observed that the water temperature was slightly warmer near parts of the spreading center – a surprising find at depths of 8,000 to 9,000 feet (2,440 to 2,750 meters) – but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.1974.tb05433.x">cooled rapidly as it flowed away from the site</a>. This suggested that hydrothermal vents might be present. </p>
<p>In 1974 Ballard took part in Project FAMOUS, which used <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/feature/history-hydrothermal-vents/discovery/1974.html">the U.S. manned submersible Alvin</a> and a French submersible to explore the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mid-Atlantic-Ridge">Mid-Atlantic Ridge</a>. Researchers descended 8,000 feet into deep rift valleys on the ocean floor, and ascended to the adjacent rift mountains at depths of about 3,300 feet (1,000 meters). Fresh basalt suggested recent volcanic activity and the creation of new ocean crust, but their survey did not locate hydrothermal vents.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Submersible manned vessel underwater" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406218/original/file-20210614-130619-1oz0x58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The submersible Alvin exploring hydrothermal vents in 1978.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/underwater-search-and-recovery-equipment/alvin-dsv-2/nur-07549.html">NOAA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, other researchers were exploring the Galapagos spreading center. In 1976 Kathleen Crane, a graduate student at the <a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu">Scripps Institution of Oceanography</a>, investigated marine heat flow in that area for her doctoral research. To do this she navigated an elaborate deep-ocean exploration machine, <a href="https://divediscover.whoi.edu/archives/ventcd/vent_discovery/thediscovery/multimedia_stills_s3.html">Deep Tow</a>, which was pulled behind a research vessel near the ocean floor and transmitted data back to the ship. </p>
<p>Crane’s measurements identified hot springs. Photographs showed clam shells nearby. She dropped acoustic transponders <a href="https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/02galapagos/background/history/history.html">marking the site that she called “Clambake</a>” for future research. </p>
<p>A year later, scientists returned to the area with Alvin and a different deep-towed vehicle, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustically_Navigated_Geological_Underwater_Survey">ANGUS</a>, that could travel closer to the ocean floor, providing better photographs and thermal measurements. Ballard and Crane both were on this expedition, along with other researchers from Oregon State University, MIT, Stanford, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps.</p>
<p>The new photographs allowed the scientists to pinpoint the most important dive sites. They made <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.203.4385.1073">24 dives in Alvin</a>. At the hot spots, they were stunned to find dense clusters of shellfish, anemones, crabs, tube worms and other organisms around vents in the ocean floor where hot water rose up from below. Analysis showed that these organisms were performing <a href="https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/eoi/nemo/explorer/concepts/chemosynthesis.html">chemosynthesis</a> – creating energy from chemicals in the seawater, in complete darkness.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xFAu8CqCtR8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hydrothermal vents are located in cold, dark waters but they support rich and diverse ecosystems that live off chemicals flowing from the seafloor.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disappointingly, all that Ballard says in “Into the Deep” about Crane’s role in this discovery is that researchers from Scripps had scanned the area in 1976 using Deep Tow and “detected a few subtle temperature anomalies.” In the scramble for credit in important scientific discoveries it can be difficult, if not impossible, to clearly identify who made the discovery. In a collective effort, who should be recognized? </p>
<p>Crane, whom I have known since 1978, was listed as a co-author on the 1979 paper in the journal Science that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.203.4385.1073">described the hydrothermal vents</a>, and went on to a distinguished career <a href="https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/u58/Crane%20bio%202019.pdf">studying oceans and the Arctic</a>. But her role in this discovery has received relatively little credit in popular accounts. As I see it, Ballard’s memoir would have been a perfect opportunity to acknowledge her contribution to one of the most important ocean science discoveries of the 20th century.</p>
<h2>Finding lost ships</h2>
<p>Ballard received much wider acclaim when he led the expedition that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/21/robert-ballard-beyond-the-titanic/7cbdc244-f951-4c1c-969a-a0a66cec2353/">found the RMS Titanic</a> in 1985. This trip was financed by the U.S. Navy – not out of interest in the Titanic, but as an <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/titanic-nuclear-submarine-scorpion-thresher-ballard">add-on to secret studies</a> of the wreckage of two nuclear-powered attack submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher, which sank in the 1960s. </p>
<p>On Sept. 1, 1985, Ballard and his team captured the first photos of Titanic’s remains, 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers) below the Atlantic Ocean’s surface and almost 400 miles (600 kilometers) south-southeast of Newfoundland. They found the wreck using <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/underwater-archaeology/rms-titanic/ships-technology-used-during-the-titanic-expeditions/">Argo, a new deep-towed sonar and video camera system</a>, to search back and forth over a 100-square-mile area of the seafloor. Ocean scientists call this process “mowing the lawn,” hoping and praying that something new will be revealed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sunken front half of Titanic" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406215/original/file-20210614-102344-fqw7pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bow of the Titanic, photographed on a return voyage in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_Titanic#/media/File:Titanic_wreck_bow.jpg">NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island via Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After Titanic, Ballard tracked down other well-known lost ships. In 1989 he and his crew <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/14/world/nazi-ship-bismarck-is-found-in-good-shape.html">located the Bismarck</a>, a German World War II battleship sunk by Allied forces in the North Atlantic in 1941. And in 2002 they <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/news-jfk-pt-109-wreck-robert-ballard-archaeology">found PT-109</a>, the patrol boat skippered by 26-year-old John F. Kennedy, which sank in the South Pacific in 1943 when it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. </p>
<p>By 2008 Ballard had led five expeditions to the Black Sea, where oxygen-depleted deep water preserved ancient vessels and their cargo. Scientists are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/science/shipwrecks-black-sea-archaeology.html">still probing and analyzing</a> these archaeological time capsules.</p>
<h2>All hands on deck</h2>
<p>In recent decades, Ballard has put much effort into increasing diversity in oceanographic exploration and research, especially gender diversity. The <a href="https://jason.org/">Jason Learning project</a>, which Ballard founded in 1989 to spark K-12 students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math through the excitement of ocean research, features many women. His Ocean Exploration Trust research vessel, the <a href="https://nautiluslive.org/">E.V. Nautilus</a> – named after Captain Nemo’s submarine in Jules Verne’s classic “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Seas">Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea</a>” – has many women as permanent crew members, something that would have been unheard of 50 years ago.</p>
<p>For me, working with a skilled crew of scientists and technicians aboard ship is one of the most exciting aspects of marine research. No one can be an expert on all of the components of our planet’s amazing ocean system, from tiny plankton floating in surface currents to tectonic plates spreading and colliding underwater. <a href="https://theconversation.com/60-days-in-iceberg-alley-drilling-for-marine-sediment-to-decipher-earths-climate-3-million-years-ago-114553">Being at sea with other marine scientists</a> has provided tremendous joy in my career.</p>
<p>There is a lot to discover about the ocean, and we need all kinds of talent to do it. Ballard’s talent lies in his construction and use of remotely operated vehicles to explore the seafloor, and his storytelling and fundraising capabilities, which provide inspiration for future generations of ocean explorers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzanne OConnell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Oceanographer Robert D. Ballard, who is best known for finding the wreck of Titanic, has written a memoir recounting his biggest discoveries and calling for more ocean exploration.Suzanne OConnell, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1397952020-06-09T13:36:12Z2020-06-09T13:36:12ZTitanic salvage: recovering the ship’s radio could signal a disaster for underwater cultural heritage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340308/original/file-20200608-176554-fqo3qk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titanic_wreck_bow.jpg">NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The RMS Titanic’s Marconi radio was last used to make distress calls from the north Atlantic after the ship struck an iceberg on April 14 1912. Now the radio could become the target of a salvage operation after a private company was <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/us/titanic-radio-court-ruling/index.html">granted permission</a> to recover the artefact from the wreck’s interior.</p>
<p>This recovery for profit is directly at odds with the ethics of modern archaeological practice. It also raises questions about legal protection for shipwrecks such as the Titanic and how we choose to value our shared cultural heritage. </p>
<p>A federal judge for the Virginia Eastern district in the US has ruled that RMS Titanic Inc., which owns salvage rights to the shipwreck, can retrieve the radio. This is despite the fact the operation may involve damage to the hull, much of which remains intact 12,500 feet (3,800 metres) underwater. This case reverses a <a href="https://archive.archaeology.org/0101/etc/titanic2.html">previous ruling</a> from 28 July 2000 that prevents damage to the ship in line with existing agreements.</p>
<p>This won’t be the first time items are salvaged from the shipwreck. Since the Titanic was located in 1985, there has been a battle to safeguard it. Even with international recognition of its historical and cultural importance, including <a href="https://www.gc.noaa.gov/gcil_titanic-act.html">through legislation</a>, by 1987 over a thousand artefacts had been salvaged.</p>
<p>After multiple court cases, a ruling allowed artefacts to be <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/titanic-show-goes-on-despite-grave-robbing-row-maritime-museum-says-it-is-satisfied-none-of-the-1430981.html">publicly exhibited</a>. The court refused a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/international-cultural-heritage-law-9780198723516?cc=gb&lang=en&">subsequent request</a> to sell the artefacts in 2001 and further planned auctions were subsequently postponed.</p>
<p>But the recent ruling, allowing invasive salvage of the radio, differs from previous ones in that it is now <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00908320.2013.750978">more than 100 years</a> since the ship sank. As of April 15 2012, the RMS Titanic falls under the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural-heritage/2001-convention/">2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage</a>.</p>
<p>This provides some protection to the Titanic by forbidding the commercial exploitation of heritage. The US and UK are not signatories to the convention but broadly honour its principles via legislation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340317/original/file-20200608-176538-1s2lwrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Titanic captain’s bathtub.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/titanic/logs/photolog/photolog.html#cbpi=/titanic/media/slideshow03/11.html">ROI, IFE, NOAA-OE</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The US <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/244/text">2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act</a> specifically forbids “any research, exploration, salvage, or other activity that would physically alter or disturb the wreck or wreck site of the RMS Titanic unless authorized”. </p>
<p>The act adds that any such work should be in line with the <a href="https://www.gc.noaa.gov/gcil_titanic-intl.html">Multilateral Agreement Concerning RMS Titanic</a>. This agreement (which came into force in November 2019) between the US, UK, Canada and France recognises the wreck for its international significance and as a memorial to the 1,514 people who lost their lives. </p>
<p>The agreement explicitly states that any recovered materials should be kept together as a collection to enable study. Materials should be left on the seabed unless there are compelling educational, scientific or cultural interests that require an intervention. </p>
<h2>Public interest?</h2>
<p>In the recent <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.115575/gov.uscourts.vaed.115575.612.0.pdf">court hearing</a>, the US government agency the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, advised that the proposed salvage of the radio did not clearly meet these criteria. </p>
<p>The justification for the removal of the radio was made on the basis of its unique status, interest to the public and the threat that it will be lost to degradation in coming years. Each of these are valid points. The radio has a unique story, is highly evocative and will (like the majority of materials) eventually degrade.</p>
<p>But the estimated rate of this degradation <a href="https://archive.archaeology.org/0101/etc/titanic1.html">is controversial</a>. The ship lies at such depth that conditions are fairly stable, and it seems that much of the damage to the ship since its discovery is due to salvage activity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340310/original/file-20200608-176542-lw7k1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Titanic wreck is a memorial to those who lost their lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/sinking-titanic-illustration-by-german-artist-237232216">Willy Stower/Everett Historical/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The RMS Titanic may not be the oldest shipwreck in the world, but it is arguably one of the most famous. The site is internationally recognised as a memorial to those who lost their lives. </p>
<p>From an archaeological perspective, recovering the radio will involve further damage to the memorial site for very limited gain with regard to scientific and cultural knowledge. We already know the make, model and history of this radio. So motivation for the salvage appears to lie in the radio’s economic potential as a tourist attraction and through a possible future sale. </p>
<p>As archaeologists we understand there are times when intrusive and destructive interventions are required. But such acts need to be carefully considered in light of their impact on our shared global heritage. Once such actions take place they cannot be undone.</p>
<p>A court ruling for such a culturally significant site that goes against <a href="https://www.gc.noaa.gov/gcil_titanic.html">advice from NOAA</a> and counter to the principles of UNESCO, risks suggesting that the principles of shared heritage and selective intervention can be easily negated through simplistic arguments of degradation and profit. </p>
<p>Once artefacts are removed from shipwrecks, they lose their context and potentially their wider scientific and cultural value. Commercial exploitation gives them a different, financial value that could encourage looting and site destruction. If it is acceptable to salvage material from what is arguably the wold’s most famous shipwreck, how can we protect lesser known sites that are even more scientifically or culturally important? </p>
<p>As maritime archaeologists, we strive to protect underwater cultural heritage in the face of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/18/mediterranean-shipwrecks-reveal-birth-of-globalisation-in-trade">ongoing destruction</a> of underwater sites that would not be tolerated on dry land, where cultural heritage is more visible to the authorities and public. So, while this salvage operation may be legal, we strongly query whether it is ethical.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Farr is currently co-chair of the UNESCO Unitwin Network for Underwater Archaeology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fraser Sturt is co-chair of the UNESCO Unitwin Network for Underwater Archaeology. </span></em></p>A recent ruling allowing a new expedition to the Titanic wreck gives the go ahead to commercial exploitation.Helen Farr, Associate Professor in Archaeology, University of SouthamptonFraser Sturt, Professor of Archaeology, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1257172020-01-05T18:53:21Z2020-01-05T18:53:21ZBroadcast turns 100: from the Hindenburg disaster to the Hottest 100, here’s how radio shaped the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306019/original/file-20191210-95153-gsbx18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2982%2C2281&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The famous Hindenburg tragedy was heard around the world via recorded radio journalism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Hindenburg_burning.jpg">Wiki Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Eighty-one years ago, a broadcast of Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds supposedly <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/orson-welles-war-of-the-worlds-panic-myth-the-infamous-radio-broadcast-did-not-cause-a-nationwide-hysteria.html">caused mass hysteria</a> in America, as listeners thought martians had invaded New Jersey.</p>
<p>There are varying accounts of the controversial incident, and it remains a topic of fascination, even today.</p>
<p>Back when Welles’s fictional martians attacked, broadcast radio was considered a state-of-the-art technology. </p>
<p>And since the first transatlantic radio signal was transmitted in 1901 by <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/guglielmo-marconi">Guglielmo Marconi</a>, radio has greatly innovated the way we communicate. </p>
<h2>Dots and dashes</h2>
<p>Before Marconi, German physicist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heinrich-Hertz">Heinrich Hertz</a> discovered and transmitted the first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E46ZU2rsupA">radio waves</a> in 1886. Other individuals later developed technologies that could send radio waves across the seas.</p>
<p>At the start of the 20th century, Marconi’s system dominated radio wave-based media. Radio was called “wireless telegraphy” as it was considered a telegraph without the wires, and did what telegraphs had done globally since 1844. </p>
<p>Messages were sent in Morse code as dots and dashes from one point to another via radio waves. At the time, receiving radio required specialists to translate the dots and dashes into words. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nazis-pressed-ham-radio-hobbyists-to-serve-the-third-reich-but-surviving-came-at-a-price-90510">Nazis pressed ham radio hobbyists to serve the Third Reich – but surviving came at a price</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The more refined technology underpinning broadcast radio was developed during the first world war, with “broadcast” referring to the use of radio waves to transmit audio from one point to many listeners. </p>
<p>This year, organised broadcast radio turns 100. These days it’s considered a basic technology, but that may be why it remains such a vital medium. </p>
<h2>SOS: the Titanic sinks</h2>
<p>By 1912, radio was used to run economies, empires and armed forces. </p>
<p>Its importance for shipping was obvious - battleships, merchant ships and passenger ships were all equipped with it. People had faith in technological progress and radio provided proof of how modern machines benefited humans.</p>
<p>However, the sinking of the Titanic that year caused a crisis in the world’s relationship with technology, by revealing its fallibility. Not even the newest technologies such as radio could avoid disaster.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299151/original/file-20191029-183112-tfezxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A replica of the radio room on the Titanic. One of the first SOS messages in history came from the ship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wiki Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some argue radio use may have increased the ship’s death toll, as the <a href="https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Navigation/Community/Arcadia-and-THP-Blog/April-2018/How-Amateur-Radio-Sunk-the-Titanic">Titanic’s radio</a> was outdated and wasn’t intended to be used in an emergency. There were also accusations that amateur “<a href="https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/ham-radio.htm">ham radio</a>” operators had hogged the bandwidth, adding to an already confusing and dire situation.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the Titanic’s <a href="https://www.rd.com/culture/sos-meaning/">SOS</a> signal managed to reach another ship, which led to the rescue of hundreds of passengers. Radio remains the go-to medium when disasters strike. </p>
<h2>Making masts and networks</h2>
<p>Broadcast radio got traction in the early 1920s and spread like a virus. Governments, companies and consumers started investing in the amazing new technology that brought the sounds of the world <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRp2u8d7lrg">into the home</a>.</p>
<p>Huge networks of transmitting towers and radio stations popped-up across continents, and factories churned out millions of radio receivers to meet demand. </p>
<p>Some countries started major public broadcasting networks, including <a href="https://www.bbc.com/timelines/zxqc4wx">the BBC</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/npr-is-still-expanding-the-range-of-what-authority-sounds-like-after-50-years-124571">NPR is still expanding the range of what authority sounds like after 50 years</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Radio stations sought ways around regulations and, by the mid 1930s, some broadcasters were operating stations that generated up to 500,000 watts. </p>
<p>One Mexican station, <a href="https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ebb01">XERA</a>, could be heard in New Zealand. </p>
<h2>Hearing the Hindenburg</h2>
<p>On May 6, 1937, journalist Herbert Morrison was experimenting with recording news bulletins for radio when the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ4XsHRZmpw">Hindenburg airship</a> burst into flames. </p>
<p>His famous commentary, “Oh the humanity”, is often mistaken for a live broadcast, but <a href="https://apnews.com/f9119c33266f4c5386cb6748787d79de/'Oh,-the-humanity!'-Hindenburg-anniversary,-broadcast-marked">it was actually a recording</a>. </p>
<p>Recording technologies such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v85ZZrxihw8">transcription discs</a>, and later <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0sdVuX06sQ">magnetic tape</a> and digital storage, revolutionised radio. </p>
<p>Broadcasts could now be stored and heard repeatedly at different places instead of disappearing into the ether. </p>
<h2>Transistors and FM</h2>
<p>In 1953 radios got smaller, as the first all transistor radio was built.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299154/original/file-20191029-183103-1b1q81i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1960 ad for a pocket sized Motorola transistor radio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wiki Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukDKVHnac4">Transistor circuits</a> replaced valves and made radios very cheap and portable.</p>
<p>Along with being portable, radio sound quality improved after the rise of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3M4cqAMWQs">FM broadcasting</a> in the 1960s. While both FM and AM are effective ways to modulate carrier waves, FM (frequency modulation) offers better audio quality and less noise compared to AM (amplitude modulation).</p>
<p>Music on FM radio sounded as good as on a home stereo. Rock and roll and the revolutionary changes of the 1960s started to spread via the medium.</p>
<p>AM radio was reserved for talkback, news and sport. </p>
<h2>Beeps in space</h2>
<p>In 1957, radio experienced lift-off when the USSR launched the world’s first satellite. </p>
<p>Sputnik 1 didn’t do much other than broadcast a regular “beep” sound by radio. </p>
<p>But this still <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0937239/?ref_=nm_knf_t1">shocked the world</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHCeLvy5z-I">especially the USA</a>, which didn’t think the USSR was so technologically advanced. </p>
<p>Sputnik’s beeps were propaganda heard all round the world, and they heralded the age of space exploration. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5M-QinwmdKc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The launch of Sputnik 1 started the global space race.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, radio is still used to communicate with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNEDNOQnwD8">astronauts and robots</a> in space. </p>
<p>Radio astronomy, which uses radio waves, has also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K6P014XXmQ">revealed a lot about the universe to astronomers</a>.</p>
<h2>Digital, and beyond</h2>
<p>Meanwhile on Earth, radio stations continue to use the internet to extend their reach beyond that of analogue technologies. </p>
<p>Social media helps broadcasters generate and spread content, and digital editing tools have boosted the possibilities of what can be done with podcasts and radio documentaries. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-as-a-form-of-struggle-scenes-from-late-colonial-angola-128019">Radio as a form of struggle: scenes from late colonial Angola</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The radio industry has learnt to use digital plenitude to the max, with broadcasters <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/series">building archives</a> and producing an endless flood of material beyond what they broadcast. </p>
<p>This year marks a century of organised broadcast radio around the world. </p>
<p>Media such as movies, television, the internet and podcasts were expected to sound its death knell. But radio embraces <a href="https://radio.garden/">new technology</a>. It survives, and advances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Hoar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the USSR launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1 didn’t do much other than regularly “beep” over the radio. Yet, this simple sound is associated with the beginnings of space exploration.Peter Hoar, Senior Lecturer, School of Communications Studies, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1207492019-07-22T10:56:07Z2019-07-22T10:56:07Z‘Avengers: Endgame’ is nowhere near the worldwide box office record – here’s why<p>Marvel’s gambit to propel “Avengers: Endgame” to become the top-grossing movie of all time finally paid off.</p>
<p>The studio <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/avengers-endgame-extra-footage-post-credits-scene">re-released</a> the final film in its “Avengers” series earlier this month with extra footage and a post-credit tribute in an effort to pass James Cameron’s 2009 film “Avatar” as the world box office record holder.</p>
<p>As of July 21, “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/avengers-endgame">Avengers: Endgame</a>” had <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel2019.htm">collected US$2.79 billion in worldwide ticket sales</a>, <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/">edging out “Avatar” by around $500,000</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/avengers-endgame-is-the-no-1-global-release-of-all-time/">Marketing</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adambvary/lion-king-box-office-avengers-endgame-record">bombast aside</a>, however, the reality is “Endgame” isn’t even close to the real record-holder – nor is, for that matter, “Avatar.” The reason why gives <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=385083">me an excuse</a> to offer a short lesson on inflation.</p>
<h2>Why adjust for inflation</h2>
<p>Prices from year to year cannot be directly compared with one another because the cost to buy things changes dramatically over time.</p>
<p>For example, in nominal terms, it costs more today <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/coca-cola-is-raising-soda-prices-ceo-says-consumers-likely-to-feel-effect">to buy movie tickets, popcorn and soda</a> and get to the theater than it did in the past, while it <a href="https://theconversation.com/rise-and-fall-of-the-landline-143-years-of-telephones-becoming-more-accessible-and-smart-113295">costs much less to call</a> your friends and invite them to come along. </p>
<p>Without <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_1">adjusting for inflation</a> and changes in purchasing power, comparisons from one time period to another are meaningless.</p>
<p>One of my grandfather’s favorite stories helps illustrate this. He used to talk about the “good old days” in the 1940s when a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread cost just 10 cents. But my grandpa didn’t consider how much lower his wages were back then. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm">Adjusting for inflation</a> means a 10-cent cup of coffee in 1940 would cost about $1.84 in 2019 dollars. Today you can buy <a href="http://www.wegotcoffee.com/cafe/sizes-and-prices-of-coffee-at-7-11.php">coffee at chains like 7-Eleven</a> for a lot less.</p>
<h2>The real box office king</h2>
<p>And that’s why “Avengers: Endgame” is a long way from becoming the box office king. The heralded numbers don’t reflect inflation.</p>
<p>To demonstrate, let’s first look just at U.S. domestic ticket sales since it’s easier to calculate and see the effect. </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm">list of top-grossing films</a> at the U.S. box office is led by “<a href="https://www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens">Star Wars: The Force Awakens</a>,” which came out in 2015 and earned a nominal $936 million, followed by “Endgame” at $854 million and “Avatar” at $761 million.</p>
<p>Adjusting for inflation alters the <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm">list dramatically</a>. Box Office Mojo, an online box-office reporting service operated by <a href="https://www.imdb.com">IMDb</a>, calculates inflation by multiplying <a href="https://www.mpaa.org/research-docs/2016-theatrical-market-statistics-report/">average ticket prices</a> in a given year by estimated admissions. </p>
<p><iframe id="6BezM" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6BezM/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As a result, “Endgame” drops to 16th place. “Avatar” slips to 15th with $877 million in adjusted ticket sales. “<a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_with_the_wind">Gone with the Wind</a>,” released in 1939, meanwhile, vaults to first place with $1.8 billion in adjusted ticket sales. </p>
<p>Calculating sales internationally is trickier because inflation is different in every country. IMDb, however, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls026442468">makes a valiant effort</a> making these adjustments. </p>
<p>Based on its estimates, “Gone with the Wind” is the worldwide box office leader with $3.4 billion to $3.8 billion in global sales. Cameron’s “Titanic” comes next at $3.2 billion to $3.4 billion, followed by “Avatar” with $3.2 billion.</p>
<p>With $2.79 billion, “Endgame” falls to fifth, leaving it with almost $1 billion in ticket sales to go to before it could legitimately lay claim to the top title. </p>
<h2>Don’t believe the hype</h2>
<p>We love Hollywood movies because they provide entertainment and escapism. </p>
<p>However, the marketing of Hollywood movies and the hype surrounding ticket sales records, like movies themselves, often play fast and loose with economic reality. This is something I expect we’ll see more of as films get released on far more screens and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-total-revenue-2018-1172725">more people in countries like China</a> go to see them. </p>
<p>I liked “Avengers: Endgame,” whose plot is based on time-traveling superheroes. It was definitely three hours of escapist fun. But the hype surrounding its box office records, like its plot, shouldn’t be taken too seriously. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="http://theconversation.com/thanks-avengers-endgame-for-reminding-us-why-inflation-matters-119735">article originally published</a> on July 2, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Disney says the Marvel movie just beat ‘Avatar’ as the top-grossing movie of all time. Inflation tells a different story, as an economist explains.Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1197352019-07-02T23:42:04Z2019-07-02T23:42:04ZThanks, ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ for reminding us why inflation matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282370/original/file-20190702-126369-1qu4kna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cap is probably not a fan of inflation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: This story has been updated. Please see the <a href="https://theconversation.com/avengers-endgame-is-nowhere-near-the-worldwide-box-office-record-heres-why-120749">new version</a>.</em></p>
<p>Marvel <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/avengers-endgame-extra-footage-post-credits-scene">recently re-released</a> the final film in its “Avengers” series with extra footage and a post-credit tribute in hopes of breaking the worldwide record for top-grossing movie of all time.</p>
<p>So far, the gambit <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/box-office-avengers-endgame-wont-overtake-avatar-now-1221918">seems to have failed</a>. As of July 2, “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/avengers-endgame">Avengers: Endgame</a>” had <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel2019.htm">collected US$2.77 billion in worldwide ticket sales</a>. This is still <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/">$22 million shy</a> of James Cameron’s 2009 film “Avatar.” </p>
<p>But in reality, “Endgame” isn’t even close to the real record-holder – nor is, for that matter, “Avatar.” The reason why gives <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=385083">me an excuse</a> to offer a short lesson on inflation.</p>
<h2>Why adjust for inflation</h2>
<p>Prices from year to year cannot be directly compared with one another because the cost to buy things changes dramatically over time.</p>
<p>For example, in nominal terms, it costs more today <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/coca-cola-is-raising-soda-prices-ceo-says-consumers-likely-to-feel-effect">to buy movie tickets, popcorn and soda</a> and get to the theater than it did in the past, while it <a href="https://theconversation.com/rise-and-fall-of-the-landline-143-years-of-telephones-becoming-more-accessible-and-smart-113295">costs much less to call</a> your friends and invite them to come along. </p>
<p>Without <a href="https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm#Question_1">adjusting for inflation</a> and changes in purchasing power, comparisons from one time period to another are meaningless.</p>
<p>One of my grandfather’s favorite stories helps illustrate this. He used to talk about the “good old days” in the 1940s when a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread cost just 10 cents. But my grandpa didn’t consider how much lower his wages were back then. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm">Adjusting for inflation</a> means a 10-cent cup of coffee in 1940 would cost about $1.84 in 2019 dollars. Today you can buy <a href="http://www.wegotcoffee.com/cafe/sizes-and-prices-of-coffee-at-7-11.php">coffee at chains like 7-Eleven</a> for a lot less.</p>
<h2>The real box office king</h2>
<p>And that’s why “Avengers: Endgame” is a long way from becoming the box office king. The heralded numbers don’t reflect inflation.</p>
<p>To demonstrate, let’s first look just at U.S. domestic ticket sales since it’s easier to calculate and see the effect. </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm">list of top-grossing films</a> at the U.S. box office is led by “<a href="https://www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens">Star Wars: The Force Awakens</a>,” which came out in 2015 and earned a nominal $936 million, followed by “Endgame” at $841 million and “Avatar” at $761 million.</p>
<p>Adjusting for inflation alters the <a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm">list dramatically</a>. Box Office Mojo, an online box-office reporting service operated by <a href="https://www.imdb.com">IMDb</a>, calculates inflation by multiplying <a href="https://www.mpaa.org/research-docs/2016-theatrical-market-statistics-report/">average ticket prices</a> in a given year by estimated admissions. </p>
<p><iframe id="6BezM" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6BezM/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As a result, “Endgame” drops to 17th place. “Avatar” slips to 15th with $877 million in adjusted ticket sales. “<a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_with_the_wind">Gone with the Wind</a>,” released in 1939, meanwhile, vaults to first place with $1.8 billion in adjusted ticket sales. </p>
<p>Calculating sales internationally is trickier because inflation is different in every country. IMDb, however, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls026442468">makes a valiant effort</a> making these adjustments. </p>
<p>Based on its estimates, “Gone with the Wind” is the worldwide box office leader with $3.4 billion to $3.8 billion in global sales. Cameron’s “Titanic” comes next at $3.2 billion to $3.4 billion, followed by “Avatar” with $3.2 billion.</p>
<p>With $2.77 billion, “Endgame” falls to fifth, leaving it with almost $1 billion in ticket sales to go to before it could legitimately lay claim to the top title. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282360/original/file-20190702-126382-bkf8q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Gone with the Wind’ came out in 1939, when ticket prices were less than 25 cents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)#/media/File:Gone_With_the_Wind_Atlanta_premiere_1939.jpg">ACME News Photos</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t believe the hype</h2>
<p>We love Hollywood movies because they provide entertainment and escapism. </p>
<p>However, the marketing of Hollywood movies and the hype surrounding ticket sales records, like movies themselves, often play fast and loose with economic reality. This is something I expect we’ll see more of as films get released on far more screens and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-total-revenue-2018-1172725">more people in countries like China</a> go to see them. </p>
<p>I liked “Avengers: Endgame,” whose plot is based on time-traveling superheroes. It was definitely three hours of escapist fun. But the hype surrounding its box office records, like its plot, shouldn’t be taken too seriously. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s why Marvel’s effort to break the worldwide box office record is doomed, as an economist explains.Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170692019-05-21T11:36:40Z2019-05-21T11:36:40ZSimply elegant, Morse code marks 175 years and counting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274994/original/file-20190516-69174-1o1ftdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4361%2C2909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's still plenty of reason to know how to use this Morse telegraph key.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/morse-code-key-on-white-background-97099433">Jason Salmon/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first message sent by Morse code’s dots and dashes across a long distance traveled from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore on Friday, May 24, 1844 – 175 years ago. It signaled the first time in human history that complex thoughts could be communicated at long distances almost instantaneously. <a href="https://prezi.com/9puvdbvqudzy/early-methods-of-long-distance-communication/">Until then</a>, people had to have face-to-face conversations; send coded messages <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-talking-drums-29197334/">through drums</a>, <a href="https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/how-to-send-smoke-signal.htm">smoke signals</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22909590">semaphore systems</a>; or read printed words.</p>
<p>Thanks to Samuel F.B. Morse, communication changed rapidly, and has been changing ever faster since. He invented the electric telegraph in 1832. It took six more years for him to standardize a code for communicating over telegraph wires. In 1843, <a href="https://www.thedailystar.com/opinion/columns/samuel-morse-s-telegraph-plans-perfected-in-cherry-valley/article_1ceb7424-a97a-5d70-b6c8-82045d04043a.html">Congress gave him US$30,000</a> to string wires between the nation’s capital and nearby Baltimore. When the line was completed, he conducted a public demonstration of long-distance communication.</p>
<p>Morse wasn’t the only one working to develop a means of <a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/the-jolt-of-electricity-that-forever-altered-war">communicating over the telegraph</a>, but his is the one that has survived. The wires, magnets and keys used in the initial demonstration have given way to smartphones’ on-screen keyboards, but Morse code has remained fundamentally the same, and is still – perhaps surprisingly – relevant in the 21st century. Although I have learned, and relearned, it many times as a Boy Scout, an amateur radio operator and a pilot, I continue to admire it and strive to master it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=29&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=29&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=29&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=37&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=37&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274164/original/file-20190513-183109-5w8cpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=37&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samuel F.B. Morse’s own handwritten record of the first Morse code message ever sent, on May 24, 1844.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mmorse.071009/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Easy sending</h2>
<p>Morse’s key insight in constructing the code was considering how frequently each letter is used in English. The most commonly used letters have shorter symbols: “E,” which appears most often, is signified by a single “dot.” By contrast, “Z,” the <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/which-letters-are-used-most">least used letter</a> in English, was signified by the much longer and more complex “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Morse_code">dot-dot-dot (pause) dot</a>.” </p>
<p>In 1865, the International Telecommunications Union <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/ITUBorn1865.aspx">changed the code</a> to account for different character frequencies in other languages. There have been other tweaks since, but “E” is still “dot,” though “Z” is now “<a href="https://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/m/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I!!PDF-E.pdf#page=4">dash-dash-dot-dot</a>.”</p>
<p>The reference to letter frequency makes for extremely efficient communications: Simple words with common letters can be transmitted very quickly. Longer words can still be sent, but they take more time.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274166/original/file-20190513-183083-1rn88ts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samuel F.B. Morse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2016816533/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Going wireless</h2>
<p>The communications system that Morse code was designed for – analogue connections over metal wires that carried a lot of interference and needed a clear on-off type signal to be heard – has evolved significantly.</p>
<p>The first big change came just a few decades after Morse’s demonstration. In the late 19th century, Guglielmo Marconi invented <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/guglielmo-marconi">radio-telegraph equipment</a>, which could send Morse code over radio waves, rather than wires.</p>
<p>The shipping industry loved this new way to communicate with ships at sea, either from ship to ship or to shore-based stations. By 1910, U.S. law <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Ship_Act_of_1910">required many passenger ships in U.S. waters</a> to carry wireless sets for sending and receiving messages. </p>
<p>After the Titanic sank in 1912, an international agreement required some ships to assign a person to <a href="https://www.itu.int/itunews/manager/display.asp?lang=en&year=2006&issue=06&ipage=pioneers&ext=html">listen for radio distress signals</a> at all times. That same agreement designated “SOS” – “<a href="https://www.itu.int/itunews/manager/display.asp?lang=en&year=2006&issue=06&ipage=pioneers&ext=html">dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot</a>” – as the international distress signal, not as an abbreviation for anything but because it was a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17631595">simple pattern</a> that was easy to remember and transmit. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/02/us/coast-guard-signs-off-on-morse-code-and-an-era-at-sea-ends.html">Coast Guard discontinued monitoring</a> in 1995. The requirement that ships monitor for distress signals was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-aug-16-mn-13607-story.html">removed in 1999</a>, though the U.S. Navy still teaches at least some <a href="https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=92864">sailors to read, send and receive Morse code</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274734/original/file-20190515-60545-17v0f17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The arrow points at the chart label indicating the Morse code equivalent to the ‘BAL’ signal for a radio beacon near Baltimore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/vfr/">Edited screenshot of an FAA map</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aviators also use Morse code to identify automated navigational aids. These are radio beacons that help pilots follow routes, traveling from one transmitter to the next on aeronautical charts. They <a href="https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2012/august/31/ifr-fix-how-is-your-morse-code">transmit their identifiers</a> – such as “BAL” for Baltimore – in Morse code. Pilots often learn to recognize familiar-sounding patterns of beacons in areas they fly frequently.</p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.fistsna.org/">thriving community</a> of amateur radio operators who treasure Morse code, too. Among amateur radio operators, Morse code is a cherished tradition tracing back to the earliest days of radio. Some of them may have begun in the Boy Scouts, which has made learning Morse variably <a href="https://observer.wunderwood.org/2016/02/22/history-of-morse-code-in-the-bsa/">optional or required</a> over the years. The Federal Communications Commission used to require all licensed amateur radio operators to demonstrate proficiency in Morse code, but that <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-modifies-amateur-radio-service-rules-eliminating-morse-code-exam">ended in 2007</a>. The FCC does still issue <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/commercial-radio-operator-license-program/commercial-0">commercial licenses that require Morse</a> proficiency, but no jobs require it anymore.</p>
<h2>Blinking Morse</h2>
<p>Because its signals are so simple – on or off, long or short – Morse code can also be used by flashing lights. Many navies around the world use blinker lights to communicate from ship to ship when they don’t want to use radios or when radio equipment breaks down. The U.S. Navy is actually testing a system that would let a user <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a27391/us-navy-morse-code-software/">type words and convert it to blinker light</a>. A receiver would read the flashes and convert it back to text.</p>
<p>Skills learned in the military <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4120186/Army-veteran-54-crawled-rocky-beach-two-hours-breaking-leg-saved-exchanging-Morse-code-signals-wife-using-TORCH.html">helped an injured man communicate</a> with his wife across a rocky beach using only his flashlight in 2017.</p>
<h2>Other Morse messages</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most notable modern use of Morse code was by <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2014-mar-29-la-me-jeremiah-denton-20140329-story.html">Navy pilot Jeremiah Denton</a>, while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In 1966, about one year into a nearly eight-year imprisonment, Denton was forced by his North Vietnamese captors to participate in a video interview about his treatment. While the camera focused on his face, he blinked the Morse code symbols for “torture,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/us/politics/jeremiah-a-denton-jr-war-hero-and-senator-dies-at-89.html">confirming for the first time</a> U.S. fears about the treatment of service members held captive in North Vietnam.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ioC_F8FvviM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Navy pilot Jeremiah Denton, a prisoner of war, blinks Morse code spelling out ‘torture’ during a forced interview with his captors.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-25-me-16256-story.html">Blinking Morse code</a> <a href="https://consultqd.clevelandclinic.org/managing-locked-in-syndrome-lessons-from-a-profile-of-a-rare-case/">is slow</a>, but has also <a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/morse_code">helped people with medical conditions</a> that prevent them from <a href="https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/accessibility/imagining-new-ways-learn-morse-codes-dots-and-dashes/">speaking or communicating</a> in other ways. A number of devices – including <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/gboard-ios-morse-code-mode/">iPhones and Android</a> smartphones – can be set up to accept Morse code input from people with limited motor skills.</p>
<p>There are still many ways people can <a href="https://morsedx.com/">learn Morse code</a>, and <a href="https://cwops.org/cw-academy-2/">practice</a> using it, even online. In emergency situations, it can be the only mode of communications that will get through. Beyond that, there is an art to Morse code, a rhythmic, musical fluidity to the sound. Sending and receiving it can have a soothing or meditative feeling, too, as the person focuses on the flow of individual characters, words and sentences. Overall, sometimes the simplest tool is all that’s needed to accomplish the task.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eddie King is affiliated with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) as a Senior Member. He is also a member of the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL), American Association of Engineering Educators (ASEE), Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), Civil Air Patrol (CAP), and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).</span></em></p>Morse code works whether flashing a spotlight or blinking your eyes – or even tapping on a smartphone touchscreen.Eddie King, Ph.D. Student in Electrical Engineering, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/783472017-06-06T01:52:56Z2017-06-06T01:52:56ZWhen it comes to disappearing ocean history, HMAS Perth is the tip of the iceberg<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172355/original/file-20170606-16856-geflhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chinese ceramics recovered from the 9th century Belitung shipwreck in Indonesia, now held at the Asian Civilisations Museum (Singapore)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ArtScience Museum Singapore</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This Thursday is <a href="http://www.worldoceansday.org/">World Oceans Day</a> and so critical are the issues facing our oceans - including climate change and <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-south-pacific-island-of-rubbish-shows-why-we-need-to-quit-our-plastic-habit-77860">plastic pollution</a> - that the United Nations has convened a <a href="https://oceanconference.un.org/">high-level conference</a> on their future. While its focus is ocean conservation, another aspect of our seas has been conspicuously neglected: the vast array of human history lying underwater. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172351/original/file-20170606-16856-iax0au.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">HMAS Perth memorialised at Sydney’s Garden Island Naval Chapel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Natali Pearson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Millions of shipwrecks and archaeological sites lie under the ocean, including most infamously the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00908320.2013.750978">Titanic</a>, resting almost four kilometres below the North Atlantic. These relics are just as important as terrestrial sites such as the Egyptian pyramids or the temples of Angkor, and preserve a history of our relationship to the seas. Just like marine ecosystems, this underwater cultural heritage is threatened by climate change, pollution, development, fishing and looting. </p>
<p>Indeed just this week, Australian and Indonesian maritime archaeologists reported that HMAS Perth, a World War II wreck lying in the Sunda Strait and the final resting place for hundreds of men, has suffered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/05/sunken-australian-warship-hmas-perth-ransacked-by-illegal-scavengers">extensive and recent damage</a>. There is now less than half of the ship left. </p>
<h2>Stories from the sea</h2>
<p>Humanity’s close relationship with the ocean stretches back thousands of years. Our oceans have provided food, connected civilisations, facilitated trade, travel and conquest, and also served as a sacred place of veneration. It’s estimated that <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural-heritage/2001-convention/">three million ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities</a> lie on the ocean floor.</p>
<p>These include a <a href="http://acm.org.sg/collections/galleries/tang-shipwreck">9th century shipwreck</a> discovered off <a href="http://acm.org.sg/collections/research/publications/the-tang-shipwreck">Indonesia’s Belitung island</a> in 1998. The ship originated in the Middle East, and its cargo was dominated by commercial quantities of Chinese ceramics. It represents <a href="https://www.asia.si.edu/Shipwrecked/downloads/07Flecker.pdf">some of the earliest evidence</a> of maritime trade between Southeast Asia, the Chinese Tang dynasty and the Middle Eastern Abbasid Empire.</p>
<p>Nor are these vestiges of the past restricted to shipwrecks. Archaeologists have discovered <a href="http://www.franckgoddio.org/projects/sunken-civilizations/alexandria.html">evidence of sunken civilisations</a>, buried under silt and sand for centuries. In Egypt, relics of the ancient city of Alexandria include temples, palaces, and the 130-metre <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural-heritage/the-heritage/did-you-know/pharos-of-alexandria/">Pharos Lighthouse</a>, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Egyptian authorities now <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/underwater-museum-egypt-could-bring-thousands-sunken-relics-into-view-180957645/">plan to construct an underwater museum</a> to share these discoveries with a broader audience.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the smallest of objects discovered underwater can reveal as much as an entire city. Lost for centuries in waters off Crete, the 2000-year old Antikythera mechanism is known as the <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/article/2000-year-old-computer-discovered/">world’s first computer</a> for its use of gears and dials to predict eclipses and track moon phases. The same site has also yielded <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/human-skeleton-found-on-famed-antikythera-shipwreck-1.20632">human bones</a>, from which scientists hope to be able to extract genetic information for insights into ancient shipwreck victims.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172356/original/file-20170606-16898-1v59y2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Antikythera mechanism, the world’s first computer, found in waters off Crete.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marsyas</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/halfmiledown00beeb">Mother-of-pearl inlays</a> - gathered by early breath hold divers and fashioned by artisans - found at a Mesopotamian site indicate that humans have been responding creatively to the ocean’s resources <a href="http://tecvault.t101.ro/NOAA%20Diving%20Manual.pdf">as far back as 4,500 BCE</a>. </p>
<p>Underwater heritage is the legacy of these past activities, bearing witness to the development of both ancient and modern civilisations. But the significance of ocean artefacts extends beyond trade, travel and recreation. For example, the study of this heritage can show us the impact of rising sea levels on human life. Such information serves as a sobering reminder of the effects of climate change, and can also help us to <a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/uc-san-diego-launches-scripps-center-marine-archaeology">develop solutions to the present environmental problems</a> we are facing. </p>
<p>Ulrike Guérin from the UNESCO Secretariat of the 2001 <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural-heritage/2001-convention/">Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage</a> explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For 90% of human existence, sea levels have been lower than they are at present. As humans mainly lived close to the water, a large majority of humanity’s development took place on areas that are now submerged. It is only within the past decade that there has been recognition of how important the missing data on the submerged shelf is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Underwater cultural heritage can also help to assess the impact of the ocean on human life, and assist in monitoring issues such as <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-shipwrecks-leaking-oil-20151031-story.html">potential ocean pollution</a> from oil and the threat of <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081210-pacific-shipwrecks-missions.html">unexploded ammunition</a> from WWII shipwrecks. Guérin argues that protecting and researching this heritage can lead to better conservation of coastal and marine areas, with increased economic benefits for <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sids">small island developing states</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/least-developed-country-category.html">least developed countries</a> through tourism.</p>
<h2>An ocean without history?</h2>
<p>Like fish stocks and coral reefs, underwater cultural heritage faces destruction from <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1296207416300334">climate change</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/shipwrecks-may-crumble-faster-after-oil-spills">marine pollution</a> and <a href="https://explorers.org/pdf/Damien_Leloup_Unearthing_History_in_Porcelain__Flag_132_Dec2013.pdf">over-development</a>. Industrial activities like fishing are becoming a greater concern.</p>
<p>Commercial <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080307/full/news.2008.658.html">deep-sea fishing trawlers</a> destroy not only fishing stocks but also well-preserved wrecks. These bottom trawl nets act like ploughs, digging up the ocean bed and tearing archaeological sites apart. In the <a href="http://badewanne.fi/ghost-nets/">Baltic Sea</a>, thousands of synthetic fishing nets are lost every year. These <a href="https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/publications-files/Ghostfishing_DFG.pdf">“ghost nets”</a> get tangled in wrecks, trapping fish and seals in the process. In Southeast Asia, historic shipwrecks in both Malaysia and Thailand face destruction from <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=jr81DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=Wrecked+twice+:+shipwrecks+as+a+cultural+resource+in+Southeast+Asia+/+Michael+Flecker&source=bl&ots=OFPlfA5Duu&sig=HW75N8uCtDdC9CDRNal3_qA2S50&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL1rS-953UAhWSQpQKHRuyCo4Q6AEINzAE#v=onepage&q=Wrecked%20twice%20%3A%20shipwrecks%20as%20a%20cultural%20resource%20in%20Southeast%20Asia%20%2F%20Michael%20Flecker&f=false">“massive trawl nets that scour every metre of the seabed”</a>. </p>
<p>Just as fishing stocks are targeted by illegal poachers, so too is underwater heritage threatened by illegal salvaging and looting. The recent unauthorized disturbance of three near-pristine Japanese shipwrecks in Malaysian waters has destroyed the thriving marine ecosystems that such wrecks support. The damage caused to these <a href="http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-much-of-human-history-is-on-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-peter-campbell">underwater museums</a> has had a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/09/images-reveal-three-more-japanese-wwii-shipwrecks-torn-apart-for-scrap">devastating impact</a> on local diving companies and small-scale fishermen. In Indonesia, these illicit activities appear to be becoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghost-ships-why-are-world-war-ii-naval-wrecks-vanishing-in-indonesia-72799">increasingly sophisticated and audacious</a>, including the most recent damage to HMAS Perth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171961/original/file-20170602-1275-1905xft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A thriving marine ecosystem in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Shipwrecks can provide a support for these ecosystems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graham Willis</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Heritage in the margins</h2>
<p>Despite its importance, underwater cultural heritage remains a relatively new concept, and tends to be overshadowed by other legal and policy priorities. At this week’s UN oceans conference in New York, plenary meetings are focusing on reducing marine pollution, protecting marine and coastal ecosystems, and addressing ocean acidification. Underwater cultural heritage, meanwhile, was discussed in a <a href="https://oceanconference.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=20000&nr=1319&menu=3327">side event</a> held in the margins. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172353/original/file-20170606-16853-51e6te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bell of HMAS Perth is returned to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, in the mid-1970s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bob Morrison</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2001 underwater heritage convention establishes basic principles for protecting these sites, but faces a number of challenges. Only 56 nations have <a href="http://www.unesco.org/eri/la/convention.asp?KO=13520&language=E&order=alpha">signed or ratified the convention</a>, and big maritime nations such as the US, China, and the UK have not. Australia has not ratified, but introduced <a href="http://www.joshfrydenberg.com.au/guest/mediaReleasesDetails.aspx?id=288">new underwater cultural heritage legislation</a> in November 2016 that brings this step closer. The heritage convention also faces the problem of perceived competition with the <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_convention.htm">Law of the Sea</a>, which sets the rules for how the oceans are shared and governed. </p>
<p>And what of HMAS Perth? In a strange twist of history, in the 1970s the Australian Embassy in Jakarta became aware that the bell of the ship had turned up in an Indonesian salvage yard. The embassy successfully negotiated the bell’s exchange, and it is now held in the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/REL/07771/">Australian War Memorial</a>: a small piece of history saved through cultural diplomacy. </p>
<p>Underwater cultural heritage is an essential part of our oceans and the way we relate to them. As important as it is to ensure a sustainable future for our oceans, it is also vital that we understand humanity’s historical relationship with them. Our future is invested in our oceans, and so is our past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Natali Pearson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Archaeologists this week found that more than half of of HMAS Perth, a WWII wreck in Indonesia, has disappeared. It’s now a race to protect the millions of other wrecks and sunken cities lying under the oceans.Dr Natali Pearson, PhD Candidate, Museum and Heritage Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/256212014-04-14T14:50:16Z2014-04-14T14:50:16ZTitanic twist: 1912 wasn’t a bad year for icebergs after all<p>At 11.40pm local time on the cold, moonless night of 14 April 1912, the crow’s nest lookouts on board the RMS Titanic sighted a large iceberg only 500m ahead. Despite quick action, the iceberg still struck the ship aft of the bows and water flooded into the ship across several compartments. In little more than two and a half hours the Titanic sunk, taking with her 1,514 lives. </p>
<p>The dramatic and sudden sinking of the ship that was touted to be unsinkable provoked a great search over the next 100 years to understand how the fateful crash happened. And whether or not there was a greater risk from the number of icebergs in 1912 has been a major cause for debate.</p>
<p>Theories linking exceptional iceberg numbers to effects such as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1477-8696.2000.tb04034.x/abstract">sunspots</a> or <a href="http://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2012/March-2012/Titanic030512.html">extreme tides</a> on the coast of Greenland have perpetuated the idea that 1912 was an exceptional year for icebergs, stacking the cards against the Titanic on her maiden voyage. Indeed, ships travelling through the northwest Atlantic in the days leading up to the tragedy did exchange a number of reports of ice. </p>
<p>But our <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/wea.2238">recent research</a>, using the iceberg records of the International Ice Patrol and an iceberg-ocean model, counters this accepted view. We’ve found that the number of icebergs in the region was neither exceptional nor unprecedented.</p>
<p>Following the Titanic disaster, the <a href="http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=IIPHome">International Ice Patrol</a> was established to monitor ice hazards and warn ships in the northwest Atlantic. One way they measure the iceberg hazard is by reporting the number of icebergs seen south of 48°N, a latitude extending out into the Atlantic from the south of Newfoundland. This recording has continued since 1913, and ship reports prior to this gives data reaching back to 1900 of ice in the area that the Titanic sank. </p>
<p>In 1912, 1,038 icebergs were reported crossing this latitude circle. In a record that varies between no icebergs and well over two thousand a year, this qualifies as a significant number. But there are several years in surrounding decades with similar numbers, including five years with at least 700 icebergs crossing the region between 1901 and 1920. The iceberg risk in 1912 then, was significant, but not unprecedented, and has been much greater in recent decades.</p>
<h2>Source of the titanic iceberg</h2>
<p>Our iceberg-ocean model also allows us to suggest a likely origin for the iceberg that collided with the Titanic. The longstanding view of iceberg movement in the northwest Atlantic is that icebergs from successive glaciers feed into the ocean current. Following it, they flow south along the east Greenland coast and then north along the west Greenland coast, finally circling Baffin Bay and heading south along the Labrador coast towards the Atlantic shipping lanes.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46368/original/rz27gz8g-1397476169.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Route taken by Arctic icebergs toward Atlantic shipping lanes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grant Bigg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no way to say from which point along this long journey the infamous iceberg might have originated – it suddenly appeared out of the night and then disappeared after colliding with the Titanic. But our model allows us to use the winds and currents of the time to give the likely origins and routes for icebergs reaching the vicinity of the Titanic sinking in mid-April 1912. </p>
<p>It is very likely that the Titanic iceberg calved (broke off) from a glacier in one of the fjords of the southwest corner of Greenland during the late summer or early autumn of 1911 and took a more direct path, across the northern Labrador Sea, to its rendezvous with the ship.</p>
<p>Placing total faith in model results without supporting observations is problematic. And, even the model suggests there is a small possibility the iceberg originated from further north, in Baffin Bay, so the question of the Titanic iceberg’s origin can never be resolved with absolute certainty. But descriptions of the iceberg from survivors and the fact that five sixths of the icebergs modelled as passing 48°N latitude calved from southwest Greenland in 1912 support our model.</p>
<h2>Icebergs ahead</h2>
<p>More localised iceberg models are used on a regular basis by the International Ice Patrol to track icebergs in the NW Atlantic today, in combination with satellite and radar data. Even though there have been years of much greater iceberg numbers in the recent past, this constant monitoring has meant the risk to shipping is now much reduced. </p>
<p>Icebergs are still a threat, however, and the risk in regions without this constant monitoring is significant. As recently as 2007, the cruise ship <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2007/nov/23/antarctica">MV Explorer sank</a> after a collision with an iceberg in the Weddell Sea, off Antarctica and collisions elsewhere occur from time to time. </p>
<p>Indeed, icebergs will remain a real risk for years to come. Their number is likely to increase as Arctic glaciers respond to global warming and the sea-ice retreats. With shipping routes planned for the Arctic and the construction of coastal installations, monitoring iceberg hazards continues to be important to prevent more titanic disasters in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grant Bigg receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.</span></em></p>At 11.40pm local time on the cold, moonless night of 14 April 1912, the crow’s nest lookouts on board the RMS Titanic sighted a large iceberg only 500m ahead. Despite quick action, the iceberg still struck…Grant Bigg, Professor in Earth Systems Science, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138252013-05-01T00:20:55Z2013-05-01T00:20:55ZTitanic ambitions: Palmer’s federal push shouldn’t be lightly dismissed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23060/original/rw4trcpj-1367360792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soon after revealing his plans to build a replica Titanic, Clive Palmer has set his sights on becoming Australian Prime Minister.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jason Szenes</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Queensland has a habit of raising the eyebrows of our southern cousins when it comes to politics “our way”. Visits to friends and family down south always have required explanations about Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Joh for Canberra, Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Peter Beattie, and lately, Campbell Newman.</p>
<p>More recently it has been Clive Palmer, our very own mining magnate, reclaiming a bit of Australian political history and making a grand entrance onto the national stage. Mr Palmer is reviving the [United Australia Party (UAP) ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Australia_Party_(current) and says he wants to be Prime Minister - and since announcing his bold plan a week ago, the momentum behind him has been building.</p>
<h2>The smarts behind the stunts</h2>
<p>Best known nationally as the man who wants to build Titanic II and the franchise owner for a short time of a Gold Coast A-League soccer team, it would be easy for Mr Palmer’s latest venture into politics to be swamped by Titanic jokes and references to <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1753154/Clive-Palmer-unveils-plans-for-life-size-dinosaur">dinosaurs</a>. But Mr Palmer has been a player in Queensland politics for decades. There is sufficient political savvy behind his pronouncements for us to take notice of his intentions. </p>
<p>On election night last year, I sat in the Queensland Electoral Commission’s Brisbane tally room and watched the live cross to the Liberal National Party (LNP) celebrations of their landslide win. The lasting image of that night was not of new premier Campbell Newman claiming victory: it was the loud, raucous offerings of a very excited LNP life-member, Clive Palmer.</p>
<p>Politics watchers here in Queensland were more than familiar with the financial resources Mr Palmer had poured into his beloved LNP; his history with the party and its antecedents was part of Queensland political lore; his role in the Joh for PM campaign is well-known. So whatever you think of the United Australia Party push, Mr Palmer is no political novice seeking to clumsily exert influence for his business interests.</p>
<p>The question some of us here in Queensland ask is “what went wrong, so quickly?”: from the joy of election night to the revival of an historic party and now seeing disaffected state MPs joining the UAP, starting with <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/palmer-signs-up-two-queensland-mps-20130430-2iqjn.html#ixzz2RzCAZB9L">former LNP MPs turned independents Alex Douglas and Carl Judge</a>.</p>
<h2>Politics 101 for a new party</h2>
<p>So what is the likelihood of success for the new UAP?</p>
<p>As my first-year politics student learnt in politics 101 last week, for Mr Palmer to ever become prime minister, he will need the majority support on the floor of the House to achieve that aim. He claims he will have 150 candidates ready, one for each seat in the lower house and candidates for the Senate.</p>
<p>Again, the 150 candidates is an ambitious aim, though not entirely impossible, but he does have a short lead-time to vet and check possible candidates. Mr Palmer has said he will nominate for the federal seat of Fairfax on the Sunshine Coast, a seat that adjoins Fisher, which itself is having an interesting stoush between newly-independent former Speaker Peter Slipper and the LNP candidate, former Howard Government minister Mal Brough. The Sunshine Coast has never had so much political attention.</p>
<p>Both federal seats are safe LNP seats and on-the-ground intelligence suggests that there is little likelihood that the seats will change hands. In drafting state members <a href="http://www.alex4gaven.com.au/">Dr Alex Douglas</a> from the Gold Coast and former police officer <a href="http://www.carljudgemp.com.au/">Carl Judge</a> from Brisbane, the UAP has its required sitting members in time for formal registration with the Australian Electoral Commission - though it is blurring the lines for the electorate between state and federal.</p>
<p>The UAP in this way is not unlike Queensland’s other conservative breakout group, the Katter’s Australia Party. Clive Palmer has also received strong endorsement from popular and respected state independent Peter Wellington, whose state boundaries intersect with the seat of Fairfax. That might garner some support from Wellington supporters when Clive comes doorknocking soon.</p>
<h2>The perils ahead</h2>
<p>I don’t doubt Mr Palmer will attract a reasonable number of votes if he stands. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with the major parties and people might like his rambunctiousness sufficiently to cast their vote his way. However, preferences will tell a big story here too. A first preference vote to UAP will send a message to the majors, but the second and third preferences will inevitably be directed to the more conservative side of politics. This will no doubt favour the LNP candidates.</p>
<p>Mr Palmer is here to make a larger-than-life impression, and he will. However, there will be further chapters to this story as the 14 September poll approaches, not the least of which will be the need to clear the air between the politics of this state and the state of politics nationally. Two state MPs do not yet a federal party make. </p>
<p>Mr Palmer’s grand ambition to be PM is unlikely to be realised this time. If he wants the UAP to succeed in the long-term, Mr Palmer needs to heed the lessons of his beloved Titanic. As captain of the ship, he is navigating into perilous political territory - so he will need to keep a close watch on where he is headed, rather than just charging in, full steam ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13825/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donna Weeks does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Queensland has a habit of raising the eyebrows of our southern cousins when it comes to politics “our way”. Visits to friends and family down south always have required explanations about Joh Bjelke-Petersen…Donna Weeks, Lecturer, Japanese Studies and International Relations, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/63422012-04-11T00:21:27Z2012-04-11T00:21:27ZOMG Titanic was like for realz #wtf<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9456/original/mxqtmn9y-1334103230.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Director James Cameron at the launch of the 3D version of Titanic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Franck Robichon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trending on Twitter this week has been Gen Y shock and awe that Titanic <a href="http://now.msn.com/entertainment/0409-titanic-real-twitter.aspx"><em>isn’t</em> just the name of a film</a>. Apparently someone has accidentally stumbled onto the fact that the Titanic story was a tad more than just a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saalGKY7ifU">bad Celine Dion song</a> and some <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYAQDlXwDa8">King of the World-ing</a> on the prow of a ship. <em>OMG why didn’t someone tell me this sooner?</em></p>
<p>There’s an easy story here about dumb kids. A tale of stupidity, naiveté and the downside of education gleaned largely from the screen. A <em>more</em> interesting story however, is the question of why Titanic should be considered more important than any other historic event.</p>
<p>Like many disasters – think the Hindenberg crash or the Challenger explosion – for reasons of sympathy and curiosity and quite possibly even a little schadenfreude – we remain fascinated decades and decades post-fact. Bad news sells and the worse the news, the higher the death toll and the more preoccupied we are. </p>
<p>Only the explanation for why Titanic has been prioritised as a historic event has much less to do with the high death toll and far more to do with James Cameron Inc’s interest in keeping us fascinated.</p>
<p>The RMS Titanic hit the iceberg in 1912. 1500 people were killed, Leonardo DiCaprio was not one of them, nor even was his character Jack Dawson who - like much of the film – was thorough fabrication. A whopping loss of life, to be sure, but lots of equally horrible stuff has happened since, thousands and thousands of other people have died tragically, and rarely have any of them been treated to the loquacious prominence as the Titanic story.</p>
<p>Two years after the Titanic disaster, 1000 more people were killed when the Empress of Ireland hit a Norwegian ship. No blockbuster film, no box office records and no elevation of it in collective memory. In 1945 the Wilhelm Gustloff ship was torpedoed, killing over 9000. The Doña Paz ferry in the Philippines sunk and 4000 lost their lives in 1987. The Haitian ferry the Neptune capsized in 1993 and killed over 1500. </p>
<p><em>Way</em> worse things have happened at sea. And if large scale loss of life is the key to importance, the Titanic pales in comparison to other post-1912 catastrophes. Think some fifteen million from famine in China and at least 100,000 from flood in Vietnam. <em>Just for starters</em>. </p>
<p>The Titanic story is told and retold and has been gifted a ridiculous and gratuitous amount of airplay recently not just because it’s the 100th anniversary of the voyage, but because a 3D rehash of the 1997 blockbuster has been released and because someone has to pay for it. Our interest is being cultivated for commerce rather than commemoration. </p>
<p>Of course, all of those more significant - and quite possibly more <em>noteworthy</em> - disasters aside, another question to ask is whether kids believing that the Titanic was just a film isn’t actually a <em>good thing</em>. Perhaps them thinking of it as fiction helps usefully mitigate muddling of history with Hollywood.</p>
<p>Only the scantest knowledge of British history for example, will tell you that the Margaret Thatcher story was a whole lot more complicated than <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZrAKdlX0SA">The Iron Lady</a> presented. If you were a homosexual or a Communist or any kind of presumed dissident, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD99zwj-ZUg">J. Edgar</a> probably seemed revoltingly kind to Mr Hoover. Not to mention the accuracy concerns plaguing flicks such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1pkbe29910">Michael Collins</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTzvLMUfwB8">The Hurricane</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xha4hZeXFtQ">Confessions of a Dangerous Mind</a>.</p>
<p>Biopics and films based on “true” stories serve a purpose, undoubtedly, but their primary goal is entertainment. To pretend that 90 minutes in a cinema with a vat of popcorn gives you enough data to be informed is farcical. </p>
<p>Indeed, a bunch of kids “discovering” that the Titanic happened in real life long before the 1997 celluloid incarnation is laughable. More ridiculous however, is the extreme priority given to the Titanic story as though we’re being peddled history more readily than cinema tickets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Rosewarne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trending on Twitter this week has been Gen Y shock and awe that Titanic isn’t just the name of a film. Apparently someone has accidentally stumbled onto the fact that the Titanic story was a tad more than…Lauren Rosewarne, Senior Lecturer, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.