After the Titanic hit the Atlantic Ocean floors on the fateful April 15, 1912, it took seven decades for the wreckage of the great ship to be discovered. A joint expedition of the American and French research teams, headed by Dr. Robert Ballard, discovered the ship more than two miles below the surface of the ocean with the help of Argo, an unmanned undersea video camera, in 1985.
Argo was designed by Dr. Ballard himself through the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s Deep Submergence Laboratory. This astonishing discovery not only added a new meaning to the sinking of the great ship but also opened doors for many ocean explorations later on. If you have always wondered when and how the wreckage of the Titanic was discovered, then this article will surely arouse your interest more.
The Sinking
It took three years for the Titanic to be built. Manufactured in Ireland, the ship set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton, the United Kingdom to New York City. RMS Titanic, as per the records, happened to be the largest ship afloat at that time. It struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912, and within an estimated two and half hours, the ship sank into the ocean with nearly 1500 people. Only 705 people could survive that night.
This was the greatest maritime disaster during that period. No wonder, it shocked the world. There were many theories drawn regarding how and why the ship sank. However, all of them remained unconfirmed as no one knew where the TItanic had taken its final plunge. Doubts and confusion kept on prevailing until the joint French-American expedition found that out.
The Tireless Efforts of an Oceanographer
Dr. Robert Ballard always knew deep down inside his heart that if there was one thing on earth that he would want to explore and discover, it’s the wreckage of the iconic ship. Right from his childhood, he developed a fascination with the ocean. Spending a lot of time near the water was a major reason. He enrolled in scuba diving lessons and became a master of it in a short time. He joined the Army after completing his graduation. He moved to the Navy two years later and soon he was assigned to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institution’s Deep Submergence Group.
He went on to complete his Ph.D. in geophysics and marine geology. And soon got involved in conducting deep-sea diving. He carried out several scientific analyses, but his urge to find the Titanic was never pushed on the backburner. Dr. Ballard badly wanted that and he started planning his mission accordingly. However, he had just two weeks in his hands.
Locating the Ship
By late August in the year 1985, Ballard set out on his mission to find the Titanic. A research team from France, with Jean-Louis Michel at the helm, joined hands with Dr. Ballard’s team and started on this expedition. The team headed towards 1000 miles to the east of Boston aboard the Knorr, the oceanographic survey ship used by the United States Navy. That was supposed to be the resting place of the Titanic. On the previous expeditions, the research teams conducted closed sweeps of the Atlantic floor. But Dr. Ballard decided to use mile-wide sweeps.
That certainly helped them cover a greater area of the ocean floor. He took the help of Argo that was capable of traversing through a wider area, diving deeper into the ocean, as well as staying underwater for a long time. The expedition team could grab clear and distinct footage of each and everything that Argo discovered right from their place on the Knorr.
While the Knorr reached the area on August 22, 1985, the first glimpse of the ship in over seven decades was caught by Ballard on his screen in the wee hours of September 1, 1985. More than 12,000 feet below the Atlantic’s surface, the cargo caught the image of one of the broilers of the ship that was stuck inside the sandy surface of the Atlantic’s floor.
Subsequent Missions
Ballard decided that once was not enough. Therefore, he decided to come back to the Titanic. Since 1985, numerous expeditions have been carried out by different teams and a few of them have brought up artifacts from the ship, much to the annoyance of Ballard. More than 5500 pieces of the TItanic have been kept at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada under Premier Exhibitions Inc., the new name of the RMS Titanic Group.
The 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking has also given rise to renewed interest in the tragedy. The wreckage site is all set to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.