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Plastic bag found floating near Titanic shipwreck
Trash is evidence of a different kind of tragedy on the ocean
By Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
updated <ABBR style="DISPLAY: inline" class="dtstamp updated" title=2010-09-09T15:54:46 itxtvisited="1">9/9/2010 11:54:46 AM ET</ABBR>
When oceanographer David Gallo stepped out onto his ship, floating above the resting place of the RMS Titanic, he spotted evidence of a different kind of tragedy ? a lone plastic bag floating in the water.
"I walked out on the deck to appreciate a calm blue sea and there it was," said Gallo, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. "It was totally unexpected and it had a profound impact on those of us on deck."
The WHOI is currently conducting a comprehensive survey, co-led by Gallo, of the Titanic site, along with the company that owns the salvaging rites to the site. WHOI scientists first discovered the Titanic's final resting place nearly 25 years ago.
The plastic bag is another example of how man's trash is lurking across the oceans and even floating near invaluable historical sites, such as the site of the Titanic shipwreck, 370 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.
"We look at Titanic as the greatest disaster at sea, but the Titanic was a single tragic event. What we are doing to the sea on an everyday basis is one of the great untold tragedies," Gallo told OurAmazingPlanet.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39077683/ns/technology_and_science-science
Trash is evidence of a different kind of tragedy on the ocean
By Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
updated <ABBR style="DISPLAY: inline" class="dtstamp updated" title=2010-09-09T15:54:46 itxtvisited="1">9/9/2010 11:54:46 AM ET</ABBR>
When oceanographer David Gallo stepped out onto his ship, floating above the resting place of the RMS Titanic, he spotted evidence of a different kind of tragedy ? a lone plastic bag floating in the water.
"I walked out on the deck to appreciate a calm blue sea and there it was," said Gallo, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. "It was totally unexpected and it had a profound impact on those of us on deck."
The WHOI is currently conducting a comprehensive survey, co-led by Gallo, of the Titanic site, along with the company that owns the salvaging rites to the site. WHOI scientists first discovered the Titanic's final resting place nearly 25 years ago.
The plastic bag is another example of how man's trash is lurking across the oceans and even floating near invaluable historical sites, such as the site of the Titanic shipwreck, 370 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.
"We look at Titanic as the greatest disaster at sea, but the Titanic was a single tragic event. What we are doing to the sea on an everyday basis is one of the great untold tragedies," Gallo told OurAmazingPlanet.
.../
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39077683/ns/technology_and_science-science