Science: Haunting Images of Disaster

A silver tray nestled in sediment. Bottles of vintage Bordeaux wine scattered on the ocean floor. A gaping hole where once a giant smokestack had stood. The ship's bridge, damaged by a falling boom. These and other poignant images of disaster, all in Picasso blue, were distributed in Washington last week at a news conference held by Marine Geologist Robert Ballard, leader of the expedition that early this month located and photographed the sunken liner Titanic. They were only a few of the 12,000 photos shot at the bottom of the Atlantic by the unmanned submersibles Argo and Angus after they...