Nazi Bombs, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: The Way Marine Life Prosper on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish waters off the Germany's shoreline lies a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and left behind, numerous munitions have become matted together over the decades. They comprise a decaying blanket on the low-depth, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists flocked to the coastal areas and calm waters for water sports, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons decayed.

Some of us expected to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, states a scientist.

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

What they found surprised them. Vedenin remembers his scientists reacting with shock when the submersible first transmitted footage. It was a great moment, he recalls.

Thousands of marine animals had settled amid the explosives, developing a regenerated habitat denser than the ocean bottom around it.

This marine city was evidence to the resilience of marine life. It is actually astonishing how much marine organisms we find in locations that are considered toxic and risky, he says.

In excess of 40 starfish had gathered on to one visible fragment of explosive material. They were residing on metal shells, ignition chambers and transport cases just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and mussels were all observed on the old munitions. It's similar to a marine reef in terms of the abundance of animal life that was there, notes Vedenin.

Remarkable Population Density

An average of more than forty thousand animals were residing on every meter squared of the explosives, scientists wrote in their study on the discovery. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only 8,000 creatures on every square metre.

It is ironic that objects that are meant to kill everything are hosting so much life, states Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life finds its way to the most dangerous areas.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Environments

Man-made features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can offer replacements, replacing some of the removed marine environment. This study reveals that munitions could be equally advantageous – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be found in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6 million tonnes of arms were dumped off the German shoreline. Countless of individuals loaded them in barges; a portion were deposited in specific locations, the remainder just discarded at sea while traveling. This is the first time experts have documented how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Instances of Ocean Adaptation

• In the US, retired energy installations have turned into reef ecosystems
• Shipwrecks from the first world war have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more valuable for marine life as the oceans are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and munitions areas practically function as refuges – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, explains Vedenin. As a result a lot of species that are typically scarce or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Future Considerations

Anywhere warfare has occurred in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are typically containing munitions, explains Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of volatile compounds lie in our marine environments.

The sites of these explosives are inadequately recorded, in part because of national borders, restricted defense data and the situation that archives are stored in historical records. They pose an detonation and security hazard, as well as risk from the persistent emission of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states embark on removing these artifacts, scientists hope to protect the marine communities that have developed around them. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are presently being removed.

It would be wise to replace these steel remains originating from weapons with certain less dangerous, various safe structures, like possibly artificial reefs, states Vedenin.

He presently hopes that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a example for substituting habitats after munitions removal elsewhere – because including the most destructive explosives can become scaffolding for marine organisms.