London, April 11 (IANS): A long-standing theory that the gigantic ship Titanic sank off after hitting an iceberg off southern Canadian island of Newfoundland in an 'unlucky' year of 1912 to sail North Atlantic ocean has now been laid to rest.

Over a century of Atlantic iceberg examinations reveal that 1912 was an 'average' year for dangerous floating ice.

“A computer model suggests that one of the glaciers at Greenland's southern tip released the iceberg that hit the Titanic on April 14, 1912, drowning more than 1,500 people in the frigid ocean.

"1912 was not an exceptional year. The question of whether this was an unusual year has now been laid to rest," Grant Bigg, an environmental scientist at University of Sheffield, was quoted as saying.

Built in Northern Ireland in 1909, the 268.9-metre-long 'unsinkable ship' now rests on the ocean floor at a depth of 12,460 feet (3.7 km).

After a glancing collision with an estimated 100-metre-wide iceberg, Titanic broke into two pieces and sank.

Several Titanic theorists have said that 1912 was an exceptional iceberg year.

According to Bigg, 1912 was a high ice year but not exceptional compared with the surrounding decades.

The study was published in the journal Weather.