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CNN Live At Daybreak

Is Deep Sea Treasure Priceless Find?

Aired February 27, 2002 - 06:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: A Florida deep sea exploration company may be in the money but they won't know for a while yet. The founders of Odyssey Marine Exploration think they've located a 300- year-old shipwreck filled with gold or silver.

We get details from reporter Jessica Yellin of CNN affiliate WTET.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GREG STEMM, ODYSSEY MARINE EXPLORATION: We're doing things out there every day that no person has done before.

JESSICA YELLIN, WTET-TV REPORTER (voice-over): In the shadow of the Rock of Gibraltar, a team of adventurers has been scouring the bottom of the western Mediterranean. They believe they've found HMS Sussex, a British ship that sank in 1693. It may contain silver or gold coins worth up to $4 billion. This team could be on the verge of unearthing more riches than any deep-sea recovery team in history.

STEMM: The circumstantial evidence here indicates that this was carrying a very large quantity of coins. If it's in gold, it would have been theoretically in the ten tons of gold; if it's silver, over a hundred tons of silver.

YELLIN: Locating this potential bonanza took years of work and new technologies.

(on camera): The project began out of this Tampa office back in 1995. The team spent three years researching historical documents before they ever went out to sea.

(voice-over): Using log books kept by sailors who watched the Sussex sink, researchers narrowed the search area to 400 square miles. In 1998, they began the hunt using remote operated vehicles 3,000 feet under the sea. Operators on deck scanned these monitors looking for artifacts and along the way they found pottery from ships that sank more than 2,000 years ago, all heady discoveries for the gamblers who make this their life's work.

STEMM: Every hour we're looking at something different that has never been seen by a person before. What's more exciting than being able to do really cool pioneering work every day. YELLIN: But of course there is the money. The team is hoping to begin its excavation in the spring, but first they need to raise the funds to pay for it.

STEMM: It is that thrill when there is a payoff it's a -- it's a real big one and sometimes it takes an awful long time to get there.

YELLIN: And after seven years of work, they're not giving up now.

In Tampa, Jessica Yellin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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