Wreck of the RMS Titanic intact and undamaged dresser behind it. Robert Ballard has suggested that areas within the ship or buried under debris, where scavengers may not have been able to reach, may still contain human remains. According to Charles Pellegrino, who dived on "Titanic" in 2001, a finger bone encircled by the partial remains of a wedding ring was found concreted to the bottom of a soup tureen that was retrieved from the debris field. It was returned to the sea bed on the next dive. The longest-lasting inhabitants of "Titanic" are likely to be bacteria and archaea which have colonized the metal
Wreck of the RMS Titanic sponsors of the 1987 expedition, returned to the wreck with "Nautile" and the ROV "Robin" in June 1993. Over the course of fifteen days, "Nautile" made fifteen dives lasting between eight and twelve hours. Another 800 artefacts were recovered during the expedition including a two-tonne piece of a reciprocating engine, a lifeboat davit and the steam whistle from the ship's forward funnel. In 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000, RMS Titanic Inc. carried out an intensive series of dives that led to the recovery of over 4,000 items in the first two expeditions alone. The 1996 expedition controversially attempted to