Mystic Aquarium

The cameras of 60 MINUTES go where no man has ever been before to capture the moment ocean explorer Robert Ballard’s expedition discovers a 7th Century shipwreck 1,500 feet below the surface.  Lara Logan reports from the famous oceanographer’s ship, Nautilus, as the vessel searches the waters at the juncture of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 29 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television network.

“We’re here to find lost chapters of human history,” Ballard tells Logan on the deck of his ship.  Ballard and the Institute for Exploration team have made some of the biggest deep-sea wreck discoveries of all time: the Titanic, the Bismarck and even the famous PT 109 once commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy in WWII. But it’s always about the next find and the anticipation of discovering the unknown. “The anticipation, ‘well, what is it?’ We don’t know…and then all of the sudden, the veil of darkness in the deep sea, like curtains, just open and there it is and you get to see it for the first time for 2,000 years,” says Ballard.

Logan and her camera crew were there when that curtain parted for Ballard once more off the coast of Turkey.  “Got it! It’s an ancient shipwreck. I love it. I love it! There she blows,” says a beaming Ballard as his undersea probes find the wreck of the ancient vessel, its cargo of oil-and-wine-carrying amphora piled on the sea floor.  Watch an excerpt.

Ballard, an explorer-in-residence at National Geographic, also tells Logan about some of his other great discoveries, illustrating his accounts with stunning footage of the Titanic, the Bismarck and the PT 109. But his greatest find was not a wreck, but organisms thriving at 9,000 feet below the ocean in total darkness.   “Discovery is an unbelievable, unbelievable thing,” says Ballard.  It never loses its magic.  “People say, ‘What is your greatest discovery?’ and I say ‘It’s the one I am about to make.’”