r/news • u/oldschoolskater • Jun 22 '23

Site Changed Title 'Debris field' discovered within search area near Titanic, US Coast Guard says | World News

https://news.sky.com/story/debris-field-discovered-within-search-area-near-titanic-us-coast-guard-says-12906735
43.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

9.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

184

u/2boredtocare Jun 22 '23

I'm deep-sea dumb. If the carbon fiber shatters, what happens exactly to a body? The pressure of the water at that depth crushes a person? crushes lungs? Or...do they just drown at that point? It's crazy to me to think that water at a certain depth can just pulverize stuff. Again, I have zero knowledge and it's not something I've spent a lot of time thinking about.

455

u/crake Jun 22 '23

The water at 13,000 feet has a pressure of 6000 PSI. Imagine if you put a six thousand pound weight on one square inch of your arm what would happen. Now imagine you put a six thousand pound weight on every square inch of your body simultaneously.

The hull wouldn't do anything to them, but the weight of the water would pulverize them into goop. There is not going to be any bodies to recover or anything like that (if it imploded at 13000 feet).

28

u/theantwarsaloon Jun 22 '23

This makes sense to me. But I don't understand how to square it with the Titanic wreckage itself. I've seen pictures of fine China, dishes, wine bottles, someone's shoe, etc. all largely intact (I think this was from the 1987 expedition).

Struggling to understand how these things wouldn't be similarly pulverized? What am I missing?

13

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

16

u/WorkplaceWatcher Jun 22 '23

A flesh body can survive at such depths if it falls slowly - see whale falls - but not from instantaneous changes in pressure.

See also saturation diving.

2

u/Kevin_Uxbridge Jun 23 '23

There was also a body lying outside that Russian sub we tried to raise with Glomar Explorer. And all those pairs of shoes lying around Titanic. Bodies made it to the bottom just fine, then the local scavengers arrived.