For the first time since 1986 veteran undersea explorer and scientist Dr. Robert Ballard made a return to the Titanic wreck site in a collaborative expedition with NOAA, Inner Space Center, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to conduct a full overview of the Titanic wreck using full High-Definition cameras for the first time. He was also following up on rumors that tourists and salvagers had caused irreparable damage to the site and sought to prove or disprove the rumors.

The expedition, which captured some of the clearest and sharpest pictures of Titanic then recorded, compiled enough material to make a new photomosaic which was released in National Geographic magazine, and detailed the various areas of corrosion on the Titanic’s bow section.

Though a complete site survey was not completed, the footage captured did show evidence that Titanic was beginning to decay in some areas at a more accelerated rate, however, as Ballard remarked, “She looks very much as I remember her”. The expedition spawned a tv documentary titled “Titanic Revealed” and the books “Return to Titanic” and “Titanic: The Last Great Images”