Message #115994

[Artemis]

Underwater archaeologist Michael Barrett gathered data on shipwrecks in the Pacific's ecologically rich Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon, Micronesia, with support from the National Geographic Society's Conservation Trust. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Barrett traced an oil leak he observed in the lagoon to a Japanese tanker, the Hoyo Maru, torpedoed by an American bomb in 1944.

The Hoyo Maru was built to hold up to four million gallons of oil. Conservationists emphasize that tankers like this bear close watch because of their massive fuel capacity.
—Photograph by Michael Barrett