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.
Opening of the North Atlantic Ocean The final major phase of breakup occurred in the early Cenozoic, as Laurentia separated from Eurasia. As the two plates broke free from each other, the Atlantic Ocean continued to expand. The Iceland plume is a mantle plume under Iceland that carries hot material from the deep within Earth's mantle upwards to the crust. The rising hot material weakens the lithosphere, making the separation of plates easier. The flow of hot plume material creates volcanism under the continental lithosphere. Iceland extends across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a divergent plate boundary, and it separates the Eurasian and North