[TowerTalk] Tower base drainage problem

Bill Coleman AA4LR aa4lr@radio.org
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 09:48:56 -0400


On 4/14/99 21:49, Jim Reid at jreid@aloha.net wrote:

>After what is dissolved in the
>water in there now has reacted with the steel,  nothing more should
>occur,  unless more O2 can get in there.  Not sure how it is together,
>you can judge that.  That is why there is still something of the Titanic
>left at the bottom,  the O2 which did the original rusting went "down"
>with the ship,  and there is no way for more to get down there now,
>otherwise  the Titanic would be long gone;  same for the Yorktown
>under some 3 miles of ocean out off Midway Island.

Jim, if there's no O2 dissolved in deep sea water, how do deep sea fish 
breathe?

The problem with the deep, open ocean is there's no FOOD at depth, since 
the source of energy is the SUN. So creatures tend to be scarce. But 
there's still Oxygen. It pretty well diffuses through the entire ocean.

Part of the reason the Titanic and other ships are still there is due to 
the tremendous thickness of the metal used to construct them. That and 
the lack of circulation on the ocean floor, which tends to keep the 
surface oxydates and other salts in place. This protects the underlying 
metal to a large degree. Oh, and the cold slows down the reaction as well.

--

After all, the USS Arizona is sitting in only a few dozen feet of water, 
where there's plenty of O2, and it hasn't corroded away in the 50-some 
years it has been sitting there. Indeed, it is still leaking oils to this 
day.




Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr@radio.org
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901


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