Wreck of the Titanic

The wreck of the British ocean liner RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet (3,800 metres; 2,100 fathoms), about 325 nautical miles (370 miles; 600 kilometres) south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. It lies in two main pieces about 2,000 feet (600 m) apart. The bow is still recognisable with many preserved interiors, despite deterioration and damage sustained by hitting the sea floor; in contrast, the stern is heavily damaged. The debris field around the wreck contains hundreds of thousands of items spilled from the ship as she sank.

The Titanic sank on 15 April 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage. Numerous expeditions unsuccessfully tried using sonar to map the seabed in the hope of finding the wreckage. In 1985, the wreck was located by a joint French–American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which was made possible in part by support secured after their successfully finding two nuclear Cold War submarines at the request of the US Navy. The wreck has been the focus of interest and has been visited by numerous tourist and scientific expeditions, including by the submersible Titan, which imploded near the wreck in June 2023, killing all five aboard.

Controversial salvage operations have recovered thousands of items, many of which have been conserved and put on public display. Many schemes have been proposed to raise the wreck, including filling it with ping-pong balls, injecting it with 180,000 tons of Vaseline, or using half a million tons of liquid nitrogen to encase it in an iceberg that would float to the surface. After more than 100 years on the ocean floor, the wreck is too fragile to be raised and is protected by a UNESCO convention.