New expedition to Titanic wreck will create detailed images, use robots

Contributed to Fyddye by Joe Follansbee   (www.fyddeye.com)

Tuesday, 27 July 2010 07:25

The company that owns salvage rights to the 1912 wreck of the liner Titanic has announced a new expedition to survey and map the famous wreck. According to a news release, RMS Titanic, Inc, a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions, which has sponsored traveling shows of Titanic artifacts, will use advanced acoustic imaging, sonar technologies and high resolution optical, video and 3-D imaging to create what it says is the first comprehensive view of the wreck site off Newfoundland. Underwater robots will map the ship and its artifacts on the ocean floor to help scientists conserve the wreck.  RMS Titanic has partnered with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Waitt Institute, both involved in deep-water scientific research. NBC News and MSNBC.com will provide real time video feeds and photos on Facebook, Twitter and the company’s website. In what the company calls “arguably the most technologically advanced scientific expedition…ever organized,” researchers will depart St. Johns, Newfoundland for the wreck site on August 18. The expedition is expected to last 20 days. Leading the expedition is P.H. Nargeolet, director of underwater fesearch for RMS Titanic, Inc. and a widely acknowledged authority of the site, according to the news release.  Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions, which was awarded salvage rights to the Titanic wreck by a federal court in 1994, has recovered more than 5,500 artifacts from the wreck. Some of the artifacts were displayed in a traveling show called “Titanic: The Artifacts Exhibition.” The company is also creator of the controversial “BODIES: The Exhibition,” which features human bodies displayed without skin. This month, the Seattle City Council banned similar exhibitions in the future if the exhibitors cannot prove the dead individuals gave consent for their remains to be displayed.

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