Nazi Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedoes and naval mines. Thrown off vessels at the end of the second world war and neglected, thousands weapons have become matted together over the decades. They form a rusting blanket on the low-depth, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was overlooked and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Underwater, the weapons decayed.

We initially thought to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went searching to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, the team expected to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, says a scientist.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin recounts his colleagues shouting with surprise when the ROV first sent the images back. This was a remarkable experience, he says.

Numerous of marine animals had established habitats on the weapons, developing a regenerated ecosystem denser than the ocean bottom around it.

This marine city was testament to the tenacity of life. Truly astonishing how much life we find in locations that are expected to be dangerous and dangerous, he states.

Over 40 starfish had clustered on to one visible fragment of TNT. They were dwelling on iron containers, ignition chambers and storage boxes just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all observed on the old munitions. You could compare it with a reef ecosystem in terms of the quantity of fauna that was inhabiting the area, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An mean of more than 40,000 organisms were living on every meter squared of the weapons, researchers wrote in their research on the observation. The adjacent region was much less diverse, with only eight thousand creatures on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that items that are meant to destroy everything are hosting so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world adapts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life finds its way to the most risky locations.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Habitats

Artificial features such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, drilling platforms and pipelines can create replacements, restoring some of the destroyed marine environment. This study reveals that explosives could be similarly positive – the bloom of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be duplicated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tonnes of arms were dumped off the German coast. Thousands of workers placed them in boats; some were dropped in specific areas, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the initial instance scientists have studied how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned energy installations have transformed into marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become habitats for marine life along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become environment to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for organisms as the marine environments are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites essentially function as sanctuaries – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, says Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of marine species that are usually scarce or declining, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Coming Factors

Wherever military conflict has happened in the recent history, adjacent waters are typically containing munitions, says Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds rest in our marine environments.

The positions of these munitions are inadequately recorded, partly because of national borders, restricted military information and the fact that records are buried in old files. They present an explosion and safety hazard, as well as risk from the persistent emission of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and other countries embark on extracting these remains, experts hope to preserve the marine communities that have established in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are currently being cleared.

We should substitute these metal carcasses originating from munitions with certain more secure, some non-dangerous materials, like maybe man-made habitats, says Vedenin.

He currently hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a model for substituting material after munitions removal in different areas – because including the most destructive weaponry can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.