Explorations

In 1985, Robert Ballard the oceanographer, using a miniature diving bell complete with sophisticated underwater camera craft, discovered the long lost wreck of the White Star liner the "Titanic", two miles deep in the north Atlantic. Two years later, using the same equipment he rediscovered the wreck of the World War II German battleship, the "Bismarck". Since then, he has conducted dramatic underwater surveys of the lost World War II ships of Guadalcanal in the pacific, and most recently, the Cunard liner, the "Lusitania", the ship whose sinking off the Irish coast brought the Americans into World War I. But Ballard has also held intelligence jobs in the US Navy and found hitherto unknown marine life on the Pacific ocean floor.