Ships sunk in 1944 hide 1,505 types of bacteria in their fuel

At the bottom of a Pacific lagoon lie dozens of warships sunk more than eighty years ago. And inside some of them there is still fuel. The surprise: that fuel is full of life.

Where

In Chuuk Lagoon, in Micronesia. In February 1944, during World War II, the United States launched Operation Hailstone there and sank dozens of Japanese ships.

Many of those wrecks still hold fuel in their tanks, and over the years it can leak into the sea.

What the scientists did

A team from the University of the South Pacific, led by Awei Bainivalu, took samples of the fuel from two ships: the tanker Shinkoku Maru and the cargo and troop ship Kiyosumi Maru.

Then they analyzed the DNA of everything living inside those samples.

What they found

A tiny world: 1,505 species-level bacterial classifications, from more than a thousand different genera.

Among them were genera such as *Ralstonia*, *Sphingomonas* and *Corynebacterium*. Some bacteria in these groups are known for something very useful: breaking down oil.

1,505 types of bacteria living in fuel more than 80 years old.

What we still don't know

It must be said clearly: the study did not prove that these bacteria are cleaning up the fuel. It only found that they are there, and that some belong to families able to do it.

Even so, the researchers believe it could be a starting point for using local bacteria to clean up pollution from Pacific shipwrecks. The study was published in October 2026 in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.