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A Megalodon tooth necklace has been discovered among the wreck of the Titanic by the Guernsey-based firm tasked with scanning and exploring the iconic ship at the bottom of the sea bed in the North Atlantic.
A long-standing agreement between the UK and US governments mean none of the artefacts found amid the ship's wreckage can be removed from the site, so the necklace has been left partially submerged where it was spotted.
Magellan has been using deep-sea mapping techniques to produce the first full-sized digital scan of the ill-fated liner. Further scans have produced detailed images of items left discarded on the sea bed, at a depth of 3,800m (12,500 ft), when Titanic sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912.
The Guernsey-based firm said the mapping produced a "unique 3D view of the entire ship, enabling it to be seen as if the water has been drained away".
The deep-water investigation specialists used two submarines to produce 700,000 images of the wreck, which were then made into a moving scan and continue to be examined some months after the scanning was carried out.
Magellan also said "the hope is that this will shed new light on exactly what happened to the liner".
Having already identified bottles of champagne and shoes lying among the ship's wreckage, the latest announcement concerned the necklace "that has not been worn or seen since the sinking of RMS Titanic".
The necklace was made from the tooth of a Megalodon, a pre-historic shark, with gold jewellery built into it. Richard Parkinson, CEO of Magellan, described the find as “astonishing, beautiful and breathtaking” on the firm's website.
Magellan are now trying to find out who may have owned the necklace by using artificial intelligence to contact family members of the 2,200 passengers onboard the Titanic when it sank.
AI is also being used to analyse footage of the passengers boarding the ship, including facial recognition and the clothes that they were wearing, in a bid to further identify any items found among the ship's wreckage and to link any discoveries with the person who may have owned them.
A Titanic achievement for a Guernsey firm
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