The reputation of the Titanic was destroyed long ago, not least on that very night in the spring of 1912 when the supposedly "unsinkable" luxury liner hit an iceberg and slipped beneath the waters of the North Atlantic in less than three hours. Since then, the memory of the Titanic and the 1,500 crew and passengers who died have been assailed by films, books and Hollywood blockbusters, each bearing a varying degree of accuracy in what happened. But now the substance of the vessel itself - on the ocean floor, two miles down - is threatened in an unprecedented manner. Ironically, the problem is partly caused by those people trying to preserve the Titanic and gauge its destruction. Experts who have been visiting the wreck of the liner over the past decade have reported that its decay is accelerating year by year, largely as a result of scientists and wealthy tourists who visit the site by mini-submarines.

In the past 10 years, the ship's crow's nest where a lookout warned in vain, "Iceberg right ahead!" has vanished and the foremast has crumbled. The captain's cabin, where he was resting when the ship struck the iceberg at 11.40pm on the night of 12 April, has all but disappeared. "I was shocked," Alfred McLaren, an ocean scientist and retired submariner who dived on the wreck in 1999 and revisited it last month, told The New York Times. "It's much more heavily deteriorated. I expected her to be in about the same shape as 1999. But, God almighty, there's more [rust] everywhere."

View: Full Article | Source: The Independent

Perhaps it's time to close the site off for awhile.

I think it is so hard to imagine the Titanic under the waves, even now, as I type this.

I think it is sad, also, that the Titanic is starting to crumble and break away.

All that metal deep under the water, it would be a really, whats the word....,maybe a "haunting" thing to see. I think they should leave the Titanic in peace now.

Cant stop decay, it cant be moved or it would just fall into millions of peices, i think they should just leave it alone, i mean get over it, it happened like over 90 years ago, sure it was tragic but time heals all wounds. The movie has been forgotten and that was only a few years ago, I think everyone should move onto looking at more exiting things underwater, volcanos, great barrier reef ect. If all the money that has been spent on the titanic was spent on the Great Barrier reef it would almost be saved, its sad to see such a natural wonder as the reef decay and die, instead of a peice of man made ignorance...

It's not decaying . It's moving on to it's next incarnation . Ship wrecks tend to gather sea life and become ocean reefs . I don't know about you but I'm over the loss my self ...

I think that they have done enought research and gathered enough artifacts. Leave the Titanic alone. There are enough pictures and web sights if anyone wants to see information .. let them look it up.
Really, people getting married on the deck, how creepy. Just another factor of when money comes into play.

Yeah, what's next, setting up a McDonald's down there?

On the one hand, I agree that having so many people visit the site really doesn't make sense, research is one thing, and putting ashes of survivors at least makes sense, but going down just to see it or to get married! that not necessary.

On the other hand, the wreck is going to decay totally eventually, there's little to no chance it could ever be moved and saved. So while it may happen sooner, it's going to happen eventually. Not something to get horribly worked up over.