Nazi Bombs, Torpedoes and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Discarded Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the Germany's shoreline sits a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the conclusion of the second world war and neglected, numerous munitions have become matted together over the decades. They create a corroding blanket on the low-depth, muddy seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was ignored and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists traveled to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions eroded.

Researchers thought to see a barren area, with no life because it was all toxic, explains the lead researcher.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the marine environment, researchers thought they would find a desert, with no life because it was all contaminated, says the lead researcher.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin recounts his scientists shouting with surprise when the submersible first relayed pictures. That moment was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Thousands of ocean life had made their homes on the explosives, creating a renewed marine community denser than the sea floor around it.

This ocean community was testament to the resilience of life. Truly astonishing how much life we discover in places that are expected to be toxic and risky, he explains.

In excess of 40 sea stars had clustered on to one visible fragment of TNT. They were residing on iron containers, ignition chambers and carrying containers just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the old munitions. It's similar to a reef ecosystem in terms of the quantity of creatures that was present, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An mean of more than 40,000 animals were residing on every meter squared of the munitions, researchers wrote in their study on the discovery. The nearby seabed was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand creatures on every meter squared.

It is surprising that objects that are designed to kill all life are hosting so much life, states Vedenin. It's evident how nature adjusts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life finds its way to the most dangerous locations.

Artificial Features as Marine Habitats

Artificial features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can offer replacements, restoring some of the lost habitat. This research reveals that explosives could be equally beneficial – the bloom of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be duplicated in other locations.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of munitions were discarded off the German shoreline. Thousands of individuals loaded them in barges; some were placed in specific sites, others just thrown overboard during transport. This is the initial instance scientists have documented how ocean organisms has responded.

Worldwide Instances of Marine Adaptation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have turned into coral reefs
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become habitats for wildlife 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 areas become even more valuable for organisms as the marine environments are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and munitions areas effectively function as refuges – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of human activity is banned, states Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of organisms that are typically uncommon or declining, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Future Issues

Anywhere military conflict has occurred in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are often strewn with weapons, says Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of volatile compounds lie in our seas.

The positions of these weapons are insufficiently mapped, in part because of national borders, classified defense data and the reality that records are stored in historic archives. They pose an detonation and security risk, as well as danger from the persistent release of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and different states start extracting these remains, researchers aim to preserve the habitats that have formed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are already being extracted.

We should substitute these steel remains originating from munitions with certain more secure, various non-dangerous materials, like perhaps man-made habitats, states Vedenin.

He now wishes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a precedent for replacing habitats after weapon clearance elsewhere – because also the most damaging weaponry can become framework for ocean ecosystems.