Wreck of the RMS Titanic but have been consumed by other organisms. "Titanic" sank in 1912, when she collided with an iceberg during her maiden voyage. Numerous expeditions tried using sonar to map the sea bed in the hope of finding it, but were unsuccessful. In 1985, the wreck was finally located by a joint French–American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The wreck has been the focus of intense interest and has been visited by numerous expeditions. Controversial salvage operations have recovered thousands of items, which have been conserved and put on public display.
Wreck of the RMS Titanic previously unseen pieces of wreckage, and led to the documentary "Titanic's Final Moments: Missing Pieces". RMS Titanic Inc. mounted further expeditions to "Titanic" in 2004 and 2010, when the first comprehensive map of the entire debris field was produced. Two autonomous underwater vehicles – torpedo-shaped robots – repeatedly ran backwards and forwards across the debris field, taking sonar scans and over 130,000 high-resolution images. 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. The expedition encountered difficulties: several hurricanes passed