A Black Goo Was Oozing from a Ship on the Great Lakes — and It Was Alive

A Mystery in the Rudder

It all began with something small.

The Blue Heron, a research ship that studies the Great Lakes, returned from a trip in September 2024. The team had been looking into algae growth in Lakes Erie and Superior. It was a normal research job for the ship.

But after the ship docked, something strange caught the crew’s eye. Thick black goo was slowly leaking from the rudder shaft — the part that helps the boat steer.

At first, it just looked like a mess. Maybe something was broken. Maybe it just needed to be cleaned. But it turned out to be much more than that.

The goo was alive.

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A Strange Place for Life

Doug Ricketts, a ship expert at the University of Minnesota Duluth, collected a sample of the goo. He poured some into a cup and gave it to the science team at the university.

That simple action led to one of the most surprising discoveries in recent years. The black goo — now called ShipGoo001 — wasn’t just sticky sludge. It was full of living organisms. Some of the tiny creatures were completely new to science. Others had been seen in far-off places — like California, Germany, the Mediterranean Sea, and even Canada.

All of this life was growing in a sealed, dark space with no oxygen. No one expected anything to survive there.

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“There Shouldn’t Be Life Here”

“This part of the ship is closed off. It doesn’t connect to the outside.”

Ricketts

There’s no light. No fresh food. No air. Hardly any movement. And yet, this small, hidden space had become a home for tiny life forms.

How could this happen?

That’s the big question researchers are now trying to answer.

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What Scientists Discovered

Cody Sheik, the lead scientist on the team, said he was shocked.

He found that some of the DNA came from known microbes. But many were new. Some were similar to microbes found in oil spills or deep under the sea.

One idea is that these organisms have learned to live in places without oxygen — just like the inside of oil pipes or waste tanks.

If that’s true, it raises more questions.

Could they be eating through steel?

Could they be damaging ships?

Or maybe… could they be helpful?

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Found All Over the World?

Things got even more interesting.

The scientists checked the DNA against global databases. They found matches to microbes from:

• Tar-like balls in the Mediterranean Sea
• Dirty sediments in Calgary, Alberta
• Marine waste near California
• Industrial waters near Germany

These microbes seem to live well in tough, polluted places.

So how did similar ones end up inside a ship’s rudder?

Do they travel on ships?

Are they hiding in more places than we think?

We may have just started noticing them now.

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Life in a Sealed Shaft

This goo was growing in a spot that was never meant for life. The rudder shaft is sealed. It should only have water in it — not oil or anything else. Still, the microbes in the goo had created a small system to survive. That’s what has the scientists so curious.

How did they stay alive?

What were they feeding on?

And if they were feeding… could they be eating parts of the ship?

This kind of damage is called biocorrosion. It’s a known issue in pipelines and cables underwater. If these microbes are living inside ships, especially old ones on the Great Lakes, they might be silently wearing them down.

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A Risk — Or a New Opportunity?

Here’s another twist.

Some of the microbes in ShipGoo001 may produce methane. That means they could possibly be used to make biofuel in the future. So the goo that might harm ships… might also help power them someday.

It’s too soon to know. But the researchers are working on a full study. They plan to share the DNA of all the microbes they found. Other scientists will be able to use that information to learn more — and maybe find ways to use it for good.

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Did the Goo Sneak In?

Now comes the big mystery: Where did it come from?

The Blue Heron was once a fishing boat. The University of Minnesota Duluth bought it nearly 30 years ago. Maybe the goo came with the boat back then — and just stayed hidden.

Or maybe it arrived more recently. The goo wasn’t there during the ship’s last checkup in 2021. So it either appeared after that or something caused it to start growing. Maybe the old owners used oil or grease in the shaft years ago. That might have given the microbes a place to live.

Or maybe the goo came from the lake — carried by something called marine snow, which is just clumps of dead stuff that sink and sometimes carry microbes with them.

Right now, scientists don’t know the full answer. They have ideas — but no proof yet.

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What It Means for the Bigger Picture

Biologist Jeffrey Marlow from Boston University wasn’t part of the research. But he says this kind of discovery shows something important. Finding new microbes isn’t rare. Scientists think there could be up to 1 trillion kinds of microbes on Earth.

But finding them in a place no one expected? That’s special.

This isn’t just about the goo. “It’s about the people who were curious enough to ask what was in it.”

Marlow said

Thanks to their curiosity, we now have new ideas about life, science, and even how we build machines.

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What’s Next?

The crew of the Blue Heron is keeping an eye out for more goo — either on their ship or on others in the Great Lakes.

Every new sample can help tell the full story.

Is this goo one of a kind?

Or is it quietly growing in places we haven’t looked yet?

Could it change how we design ships?

Or maybe even how we fuel them?

Or… is it just another reminder that life has a way of showing up in the most surprising places?