Among the items recovered from the Titanic that are up for auction are some dollar bills, a felt hat and a leather purse. One website said that the tanning process used on the leather purse had repelled the microbes that eat organic material. Must have been a damn good tanning process. What could have prevented the dollars and the felt hat from disintegrating?
The Titanic was at the bottom of 13,000 feet of water. The cold alone would have prevented microbes from surviving to eat anything. The pressure also probably didn’t help them.
No. You’d be astonished at the kind of conditions that bacteria can thrive in. And it’s never gonna be colder than 4 °C down there.
All of the other artifacts are metal or ceramic. I was under the impression that most of the “soft” materials such as carpet, human remains and wood had been devoured by undersea organisms.
I once saw a photo of a pair of common workman’s boots on the bottom at the Titanic site. Presumably all else, including human body and clothing, was long gone. So I assume the standard tanning process of the day was sufficient for preservation.
Any pictures of the money online?
That page has a pic of some of the money.
Paper and other items survived when encased in leather wallets.
See these two YouTube videos:
Bacteria can survive in amazingly harsh environments (the linked site discusses some of the life forms that can survive and thrive in intolerable conditions, including bacteria, eukaryotes, Archea and political lobbyists).
It’s saltwater. I am pretty sure it can get well below 0 °C.
Titanic eventually will be devoured, as well. Titanic and bacteria. Wikipedia:
True, although deep ocean depths are generally very low energy environments unless there’s a smoker or something around. Bacteria can thrive, but their metabolisms could still be very slow.
That’s what I was thinking, that microbes are even devouring the ship itself, and causing huge “rusticles”.
I’m surprised that leather items and the objects inside of leather items (money inside of billfolds) are in near perfect condition. I suppose the felt hat also went through some sort of tanning process…
Fish Cheer is correct about the water being 4 C. The deepest parts of the ocean are always about 4 C as this is the temperature at which the density of water is the highest. (See graph 4 in the link.) If any water managed to get to a higher or lower temperature in the deep ocean, it would rise.
I should note that it’s best to think of U.S. currency more like cloth than like “paper.” I think it’s mostly or entirely made of linen and cotton.
Which I know leaves the separate problem of how cloth could survive that long . . . .
From your cite: “Other factors affect water’s density such as weather it is tap or fresh water or salt water.” The max density of pure water is different than salt water.
According to this cite: http://marinebio.org/oceans/deep/
Temperature of deep ocean water is between -1 and +4 Degrees.
Granted, I thought it would get colder than -1, but it is still below freezing.
Weren’t they were in the safe with Rose’s drawing?
Its temperature might be below the freezing point of pure water at standard pressure, but it’s evidently not frozen. Without the actual phase change, there’s nothing about 0°C that would make any difference to psychrophilic bacteria.
The fact that Rose’s drawing survived with little damage is something that always bothered me about the movie. I will feel much better if it is possible for such a thing to happen. The drawing was on regular artist’s paper which probably isn’t a durable as money.
Okay, sure. But your claim was that the water was no lower than 4 degrees. My claim was that it got well below 0. Now you’re talking about frozen vs liquid, and that wasn’t part of anyone’s claim. Why is it so hard for people to admit they were wrong? I readily admitted that I was wrong when I said “well below”. But it still gets below 0.
If the water froze, it would rise to the surface anyway.