Mysterious Megalodon Shark Tooth Necklace Found at Titanic Wreck

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A lost necklace made from the tooth of a megalodon shark has been found in the iconic wreckage of the RMS Titanic.

The necklace hasn’t been seen since the infamous sinking of the luxury passenger liner—considered to be the most advanced of its time—111 years ago.

The Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic, about 370 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 15, 1912. The ship was four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City.

The disaster resulted in the deaths of over 1,500 people—more than two-thirds of the crew and passengers who were onboard at the time.

Survivors watch from their lifeboats as the Titanic plunges beneath the waves after hitting on iceberg. A megalodon tooth necklace has been discovered at the wreck 111 years later.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The story of the tragedy holds a special place in the popular imagination, having been the subject of exhibitions, documentaries and Hollywood blockbusters—including James Cameron’s 1997 Academy Award-winning drama.

The necklace was found by Magellan, a company based in Guernsey, a self-governing British Crown dependency located in the English Channel, near the coast of France. The firm specializes in underwater site investigations and seabed mapping.

As part of an underwater scanning project, Magellan snapped 700,000 images of the Titanic wreck using two submarines. Using these images, the company then created the first-ever full-sized digital scan of the Titanic, providing a remarkable new view of the wreck.

Among the images captured, the Magellan team managed to spot the megalodon tooth necklace, which also contains gold.

The find was “astonishing, beautiful and breathtaking,” Magellan CEO Richard Parkinson said in a statement.

Megalodon is huge shark that is thought to have become extinct around 3.6 million years ago. Considered the largest shark to have ever lived, the earliest known megalodon remains date back more than 20 million years.

The largest megalodon could have measured 50 to 60 feet in length, according to the Natural History Museum in London. By comparison, the largest-recorded great white sharks are about 20 feet.

Megalodon teeth can measure up to 7 inches, although fossil finds usually measure between 3 and 5 inches, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Magellan didn’t extract the megalodon tooth necklace from the wreck due to an agreement between U.S. and U.K. authorities that prevents such removals by members of the public.

Magellan is currently trying to determine who the owner of the necklace was, with the help of artificial intelligence. The firm is using AI to analyze footage of passengers boarding the ship in 1912, examining the clothes they were wearing while employing facial recognition techniques.

The AI is also being used to contact family members of the 2,200 passengers who were onboard during the ship’s fateful voyage.

Magellan’s scan of the Titanic has essentially created a photorealistic 3D model—or “digital twin”—of the wreck with unprecedented resolution.

Given the remote nature of the wreck, which lies at a depth of around 12,500 feet, getting a full picture of the site has previously proved to be very challenging.

“Previously footage has only allowed you to see one small area of the wreck at a time. This model will allow people to zoom out and to look at the entire thing for the first time,” Gerhard Seiffert of Magellan previously told NPR. “This is the Titanic as no one had ever seen it before.”

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