Bacteria eating away at Titanic’s hull and superstructure

Guardian : : The RMS Titanic, which sank almost 100 years ago, is slowly being eaten away by a newly identified species of bacterium, Halomonas titanicae, which lives in “rusticles” affixed to the ship’s hull. A rusticle is a structure that looks like an icicle but consists of rust and is highly porous; rusticles can support a complex variety of bacteria. While H. titanicae could pose problems for offshore oil and gas pipelines, it could be useful in the disposal of old ships and oil rigs that have been cleaned of toxins and oil-based products, according to researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, and Seville University in Spain.