Topics: News, World News, Science
The story of the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic back in 1912 was popularised to the world back in 1997 with the box-office hit, Titanic.
Sky-rocketing the careers of a fresh-faced Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the cult-classic film follows the likes of Rose (Winslet) and Jack (DiCaprio) as they embark on a journey (and romance) of a lifetime on the grand ship.
While the latter was fictionalised, the sinking was very much so a real thing and sadly took the lives of around 1,500 people.
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The US committee investigating the sinking estimated that a staggering 1,517 lives were lost, while its British counterpart determined that 1,503 died.
It was the crew who suffered the most casualties, with around 700 deaths.
Third class took a massive hit too, with only 174 of its approximately 710 passengers surviving the sinking disaster.
However, it may surprise you that even with the extremely high death tolls - there isn't actually any human remains in the Titanic, and the reason is pretty interesting.
Throughout the years, experts researching the wreckage site - which was first discovered in 1985 by oceanographer Robert Ballard - have found a whole bunch of historical relics, but no skeletons or bones were ever found in the ruins of the 'unsinkable' ship.
James Cameron, the director of Titanic who has visited and explored the wreck some 33 times, told the New York Times back in 2012: "I’ve seen zero human remains.
"We’ve seen clothing. We’ve seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we’ve never seen any human remains."
This is pretty bizarre, considering human remains have been discovered in shipwrecks far older than the Titanic.
So, what's the reason?
Well, according to IFL Science, there's a pretty scientific explanation and it's apparently all to do with how deep the ship is.
"The issue you have to deal with is, at depths below about 3,000 feet (around 914 metres), you pass below what's called the calcium carbonate compensation depth," founder of the wreckage Ballard explained to NPR back in 2009.
The former Naval Reserve commanding officer continued: "And the water in the deep sea is under saturated in calcium carbonate, which is mostly, you know, what bones are made of.
"For example, on the Titanic and on the Bismarck, those ships are below the calcium carbonate compensation depth, so once the critters eat their flesh and expose the bones, the bones dissolve."
Well, that explains that then.
