Experts on the ship met recently at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in the US to discuss findings made during the summer. Two large hull pieces, each about 12m x 28m in size, were located in a newly discovered debris field nearly a kilometre south of the wreck's stern section.
An Orlando-based team, sponsored by the History Channel, sent down a three-man submersible to observe the parts, which were originally a large, single area of the lower hull. The ship's red anti-fouling paint was still clearly visible. In the same debris field were found ship's china and personal effects.
The finds are thought to signal where the Titanic actually hit an iceberg, and suggest that the ship was far more seriously damaged in the collision than previously realised.
It was thought that the collision left a long gash in the ship's side below the waterline, causing it to fill until it broke its back and nose-dived to the seabed, the forward section ahead of the separating stern section.
But Mark Harris, who led the expedition examining the latest finds, believes the pieces show that the ship rode up on the berg, with the result that a large section of its lower hull was ripped out.
This was likely to have been the primary cause of the ship's breaking in two, rather than its filling with water. The ship 'sank because it broke up', rather than 'broke up because it sank,' a naval architect, Roger Long, is reported to have said.
Previous estimates for the timescale of the ship's sinking have been based, among other things, on survivors' accounts. Even so, some experts believe that, based on the latest evidence, the ship may have broken up and sunk more quickly than many people realised.
A documentary detailing the new discoveries and resulting theories is to be aired in the US by the History Channel in late February.
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