Nazi Bombs, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Dumped Armaments

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from boats at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, countless weapons have accumulated over the decades. They create a rusting layer on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of visitors came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Below the waves, the weapons decayed.

We initially thought to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, states a scientist.

When the team went searching to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, researchers anticipated finding a desert, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, states a scientist.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues exclaiming in amazement when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. It was a great moment, he says.

Numerous of sea creatures had established habitats on the munitions, creating a renewed ecosystem richer than the seabed around it.

This underwater metropolis was proof to the resilience of marine life. Truly surprising how much marine organisms we observe in locations that are supposed to be toxic and dangerous, he states.

More than 40 starfish had piled on to one accessible fragment of TNT. They were living on iron containers, detonator compartments and carrying containers just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all observed on the old munitions. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the amount of animal life that was inhabiting the area, states Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An mean of more than 40,000 animals were living on every square metre of the explosives, scientists wrote in their research on the discovery. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand creatures on every square metre.

It is ironic that objects that are meant to eliminate everything are drawing so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. You can see how nature evolves after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in some way, marine life returns to the most hazardous areas.

Man-made Features as Marine Habitats

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can provide substitutes, replacing some of the removed marine environment. This study reveals that munitions could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable to be duplicated in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of arms were dumped off the Germany's coast. Thousands of people loaded them in boats; a portion were placed in designated sites, the remainder just discarded at sea en route. This is the initial instance experts have studied how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the US, retired energy installations have turned into coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to coral off Asan in Guam

These places become even more valuable for wildlife as the oceans are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites essentially act as sanctuaries – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of human activity is banned, says Vedenin. Consequently a numerous of species that are typically uncommon or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Coming Considerations

Anywhere military conflict has happened in the last century, surrounding seas are usually littered with munitions, states Vedenin. Millions of tons of dangerous substances rest in our marine environments.

The sites of these munitions are poorly recorded, partially because of international boundaries, classified armed forces records and the situation that documents are stored in old files. They create an explosion and security danger, as well as danger from the persistent emission of hazardous substances.

As Germany and other countries start extracting these remains, researchers aim to protect the ecosystems that have developed nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being cleared.

It would be wise to substitute these iron structures originating from munitions with some safer, some non-dangerous objects, like maybe man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He currently wishes that what happens in Lübeck creates a model for substituting habitats after munitions removal elsewhere – because including the most harmful armaments can become framework for ocean ecosystems.