By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: April 9, 2012
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Get Science News From The New York Times » Already, knowing the exact positions of thousands of parts, structures and artifacts has allowed the government and the International Maritime Organization to draw up recommendations for the operation of the mini-submarines that ferry tourists more than two miles down to the bottom of the North Atlantic for a glimpse of the great ship.
"People have the right to see, explore and learn," said James P. Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors the wreck. "But you want to put down guidelines like those at Gettysburg and the Acropolis, so visitors can experience it in the same way."
The Titanic went down in international waters, 380 miles off Newfoundland, so no nation has an exclusive claim to its scattered remains. In 1985, a team of American and French explorers found its wreckage upright but split into two large sections, the bow and stern about a third of a mile apart.
Entrepreneurs mounted expeditions in 1987, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2004 that picked up roughly 5,500 artifacts. An American company, RMS Titanic Inc., owns the salvage rights and displays many of the artifacts in Titanic shows. On Wednesday, it plans to auction off its entire trove .
Meanwhile, the tourist submarines have a history of damaging delicate artifacts and bumping into the increasingly fragile wreck, threatening to accelerate its demise.
Starting in 2004, the United States sought to forge an agreement with France, Canada and Britain to find ways to protect the ship's remains.
Then, in 2010, federal experts joined with RMS Titanic on an expedition to do extensive mapping. Sonars crisscrossed the dark site, and cameras snapped 130,000 pictures, revealing much that had previously been lost to history. The technical muscle behind the effort came from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, which originally helped find the doomed liner.
"It's the first bird's-eye view of the entire site," said David Gallo, director of special projects at Woods Hole.
One revelation is that the liner broke in two near the surface and that the stern pinwheeled down through the dark waters. Judging from roiled sediments, the force of momentum kept trying to rotate the stern as it slammed into the bottom.
"We can identify the big pieces, put them back together and better understand what happened," said Paul H. Nargeolet, a French mini-sub pilot who helped lead the 2010 expedition.
National Geographic magazine has posted many images from the project online, at ngm.com/titanic , including ones that allow viewers to zoom in to see individual artifacts and parts of the shipwreck up close. And on Sunday, the History Channel will broadcast a documentary featuring the project.
The National Park Service is now helping to analyze the images as part of an increasingly wide effort to subject the entrepreneurial zone to the ordered thoroughness of an archaeological site that can be analyzed and preserved for future generations.
"The overwhelming majority of the artifacts that we see on the bottom come from a small section where the ship disintegrated," said David Conlin, an underwater archaeologist with the park service. "That leads to the conclusion that millions of other artifacts remain inside the bow and stern."
Dr. Delgado of NOAA said he expects the team will issue an archaeological report next year. He said it could become the basis for accelerated efforts at protection.
"There's an awful lot of stuff that's come down in recent years — beer cans and garbage bags — plus equipment left over from various expeditions," he said. "We wouldn't think that was a good thing at Gettysburg," he said of the Civil War battlefield. "With Titanic, we need the same kind of standard."
In January, the International Maritime Organization issued an advisory based on a United States Coast Guard analysis conducted in cooperation with the imaging project. It is now "strongly recommending" that vessels refrain from dumping garbage at the site or installing memorial plaques, "however well intentioned."
The advisory also designates four areas where mini-submarines can release their dive weights so the vessels can become buoyant enough to return to the surface.
Dr. Delgado said the team's analysis showed the designated drop zones to be "artifact-free — not unlike a wilderness area."
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