citation needed] Data from a sonar map made during a 2010 expedition showed that the stern rotated like a helicopter blade as it sank. Titanic survivor Eva Hart condemned what many saw as the looting of a mass grave: "To bring up those things from a mass sea grave just to make a few thousand pounds shows a dreadful insensitivity and greed. This enabled a detailed photomosaic of the debris field to be created for the first time, giving scientists a much clearer view of the dynamics of the ship's sinking.

Passenger staterooms have largely deteriorated because they were framed in perishable softwoods such as pine, leaving hanging electrical wire, light fixtures and debris interspersed with more durable items like brass bed frames, light fixtures, and marble-topped washstands. Exhibitions of Titanic artefacts [ edit ] Pocket watch retrieved from an unknown victim of the disaster. However, within only two weeks of the discovery, British insurance company the Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association claimed that it owned the wreck, and several more schemes to raise it were announced. He asked whether his fiancée could come too and was told that she could—but only if she agreed to get married during the trip.The soft organic material aboard and dispersed onto the seabed around the hull would have been the first to disappear, rapidly devoured by fish and crustaceans.

The artefacts can be sold only to a company that would abide by the lengthy list of conditions and restrictions. The French team spent five weeks, from 5 July to 12 August 1985, "mowing the lawn"– sailing back and forth across the 150-square-nautical-mile (510-square-kilometre) target area to scan the sea bed in a series of stripes. Although it was designed for scientific purposes, it also had important military applications and the United States Navy agreed to sponsor the system's development, [28] on condition that it was to be used to carry out a number of programmes—many still classified—for the Navy. Captain Smith's quarters were heavily damaged by the collapse of the external bulkhead, which exposed the cabin's interior. A newly discovered species of rust-eating bacterium found on the ship has been named Halomonas titanicae, which has been found to cause rapid decay of the wreck.

Dense rusticles hanging from the steel decking combined with the deep layers of silt that have accumulated in the interior make navigating the wreck disorienting.