News

Oct 08, 2023

Scan finds megalodon tooth necklace in Titanic wreck

A necklace carrying the tooth of a prehistoric shark known as a megalodon

A necklace carrying the tooth of a prehistoric shark known as a megalodon has been discovered in the wreckage of the Titanic during a digital scan of the sunken ship.

For more than 100 years, the necklace has sat at the bottom of the ocean following the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, according to Magellan, a deep water investigation company that carried out the scan.

Images from the scan show a gold necklace with a tooth of a megalodon, scientifically known as Otodus megalodon, a prehistoric shark that lived more than 23 million years ago.

Megalodons were faster than any shark alive today and big enough to eat an orca in just five bites.

The necklace was discovered by Magellan during a project to produce a full-size digital scan of the Titanic, which the company says is the largest underwater scanning project in history.

Richard Parkinson, CEO of Magellan, said the find was "astonishing, beautiful and breathtaking."

"What is not widely understood is that the Titanic is in two parts and there's a three-square-mile debris field between the bow and the stern," Parkinson told ITV last week. "The team mapped the field in such detail that we could pick out those details."

Earlier this month, details were released about the project. Magellan and filmmakers Atlantic Productions said at the time that a team of scientists used deep sea mapping to create "an exact ‘Digital Twin’ of the Titanic wreck for the first time."

The extinct superpredator megalodon was big enough to eat orcas, scientists say

Scientists managed to "reveal details of the tragedy and uncover fascinating information about what really happened to the crew and passengers on that fateful night" of April 14, 1912, the press release earlier this month said.

The Titanic was the largest ocean liner in service at the time, thought to be nearly impregnable. But it struck an iceberg in the Atlantic and more than 1,500 people died in the sinking, shocking the world and prompting outrage over a lack of lifeboats on board.

'Largest underwater scanning project in history' gives never-before-seen view of Titanic

Scans of the wreck were carried out in the summer of 2022 by a specialist ship stationed 700 kilometers (435 miles) off the coast of Canada, according to the release. Tight protocols prohibited team members from touching or disturbing the wreck which investigators stressed was treated with the "utmost of respect."

The final digital replica has succeeded in capturing the entire wreck including both the bow and stern section, which had separated upon sinking.