  The recent likely implosion of the Titan deep ocean submersible's spherical
pressure hull has elevated interest and concerns on the nature and dynamics of
such events. Here we report on studies of three deep-ocean implosions of 43 cm
diameter glass instrument housings, made by Benthos Inc. The goal of the
studies was to determine the effects on their associated cabling, moorings, and
other spheres as part of a larger deep sea observatory. High resolution
acoustic profiles were also measured for two of the three implosions, allowing
us to infer some of the dynamics and kinematics of the events. The mechanical
forces on the ancillary mooring hardware during the entire implosive/explosive
event were found to be most probably dominated by the explosive shock wave
following the initial infall. A syntactic float at a distance of 16 m from the
implosion center was probably shattered by such a shock wave, but 3 glass
instrument housings apparently survived within a distance of 6 m from the same
implosion.
