Small Craft Gallery
Presenter: Steve Blasco
Diving to the wreck site of RMS TITANIC with Stephen Low was the experience of a lifetime. While filming the IMAX docudrama ‘TITANICA’, Mr. Blasco was able to survey the wreck and surrounding seafloor in small Russian MIR submersibles. Diving to 3800 metres water depth in the cold North Atlantic, 1100 km east of Halifax, Nova Scotia took 17 to 22 hours per dive to photograph, collect samples of seafloor sediments, Rusticles, and deep-water animals.
Five years later James Cameron returned to the wreck site to film and set the stage for his blockbuster movie TITANIC. In return for assisting Cameron in the preparation for this recovery operation, we were able to analyze the film footage collected during the ROV operations within the wreck, for comparison to our external observations.
This presentation will focus on personal experiences and exciting Canadian discoveries on and around the wreck and the surrounding seafloor, including: “Why was the 53,000-ton ocean liner not buried deep into the primordial oozes of the North Atlantic seafloor?”
Mr. Blasco's research focuses on seafloor and lakebed geological investigations. His marine geological research has involved the use of bottom profiling sonars, seismic systems, seabed sediment samplers, bottom imaging cameras and manned and unmanned submersibles. Mr. Blasco is an emeritus scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada.
