Confirmation of an oily sea surface at Wreck 1487

In response to a Spring 2025 inquiry from the United States Coast Guard about the status of oil above Wreck 1487 (NOAA 2017), located 70 nautical miles (128 km) SSE of Nantucket, MA, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) opportunistically surveyed the site in July and September 2025 from the RV Neil Armstrong (the Armstrong). The seafloor and water column were acoustically mapped and imaged on July 22, 2025. Sea surface samples collected on September 8, 2025, were analyzed for petroleum hydrocarbons. The Armstrong’s EM712 multibeam echosounder provided a detailed image of a shipwreck at 40°6.02’ N, 69°55.05’ W at 123 meters depth, approximately 200 meters west of the location listed in the Automated Wreck and Obstruction Information System (AWOIS) dataset (NOAA 2018) . No other wrecks were observed in the local area. The wreck’s features are consistent (though not verified) with the bow of the MT Norness, an Allied Panamanian-flagged tanker sunk by the German submarine U-123 on January 14, 1942 . Water column echograms from the Armstrong’s EK80 fisheries sonar show anomalies consistent with oil droplets rising from the wreck to the sea surface – a region with a dampened surface layer that smelled of petroleum. Chemical analyses established that the sea surface was contaminated.