Nazi Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Discarded Armaments

In the slightly salty sea off the German shoreline rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and naval mines. Discarded from barges at the end of the World War II and neglected, thousands explosives have fused into clusters over the decades. They comprise a corroding carpet on the low-depth, silty seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was ignored and neglected. A growing number of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons eroded.

We initially anticipated to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, says a scientist.

When the team went searching to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team expected to see a barren area, with no life because it was all contaminated, explains Andrey Vedenin.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin remembers his colleagues shouting with surprise when the ROV first relayed pictures. This was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Thousands of marine animals had established habitats amid the munitions, creating a revitalized marine community denser than the seabed nearby.

This marine city was evidence to the persistence of life. Truly remarkable how much life we find in locations that are considered hazardous and risky, he states.

In excess of 40 sea stars had gathered on to one accessible chunk of TNT. They were residing on metal shells, fuse pockets and carrying containers just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the historic weapons. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the abundance of fauna that was present, states Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand animals were residing on every meter squared of the explosives, experts documented in their research on the observation. The adjacent region was much less diverse, with only 8,000 creatures on every meter squared.

It is ironic that things that are designed to destroy all life are hosting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. It's evident how nature adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in some way, life returns to the most risky places.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Habitats

Man-made features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can provide replacements, restoring some of the destroyed marine environment. This study reveals that explosives could be equally advantageous – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is expected to be duplicated elsewhere.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6 million tonnes of arms were discarded off the German coast. Thousands of workers placed them in boats; a portion were placed in allocated sites, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the initial instance experts have studied how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have transformed into coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become environments for creatures along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These locations become even more valuable for wildlife as the oceans are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites practically serve as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but virtually any kind of human activity is banned, says Vedenin. As a result a many of marine species that are otherwise rare or declining, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Coming Issues

Anywhere military conflict has taken place in the last century, surrounding seas are typically littered with munitions, says Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of explosive material remain in our oceans.

The positions of these munitions are insufficiently recorded, partially because of international boundaries, classified military information and the fact that documents are stored in historic archives. They present an explosion and safety risk, as well as danger from the continuous emission of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states begin extracting these relics, scientists aim to safeguard the marine communities that have developed nearby. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are currently being removed.

Researchers recommend substitute these iron structures originating from munitions with some more secure, some safe objects, like perhaps artificial reefs, suggests Vedenin.

He currently wishes that what transpires in Lübeck establishes a model for replacing material after explosive extraction in other locations – because also the most harmful armaments can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.