Nazi Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Prosper on Abandoned Armaments

In the slightly salty sea off the Germany's shoreline sits a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and naval mines. Discarded from boats at the conclusion of the second world war and left behind, countless explosives have accumulated over the decades. They form a rusting blanket on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.

Researchers expected to see a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the first scientists went searching to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, some of us thought they would find a desert, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin recounts his colleagues shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. It was a remarkable experience, he recalls.

Countless of ocean life had settled on the explosives, creating a regenerated habitat denser than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was testament to the resilience of marine life. Indeed surprising how much marine organisms we find in locations that are considered dangerous and dangerous, he states.

More than 40 starfish had gathered on to one exposed piece of TNT. They were living on iron containers, fuse pockets and transport cases just centimetres from its dangerous content. Marine fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the historic weapons. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the amount of creatures that was there, states Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 animals were dwelling on every square metre of the munitions, experts wrote in their research on the finding. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that objects that are meant to kill all life are drawing so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life returns to the most risky locations.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Habitats

Man-made features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and pipelines can create substitutes, restoring some of the lost marine environment. This study shows that munitions could be equally positive – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be found elsewhere.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6 million tonnes of weapons were discarded off the German shoreline. Thousands of workers transported them in boats; some were dropped in designated areas, the remainder just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time scientists have studied how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Examples of Marine Adaptation

• In the United States, retired energy installations have transformed into reef ecosystems
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become home to coral off Asan in Guam

These areas become even more valuable for organisms as the seas are increasingly depleted by fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and munitions areas essentially serve as sanctuaries – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, explains Vedenin. Consequently a numerous of organisms that are usually scarce or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Coming Factors

Anywhere military conflict has happened in the recent history, adjacent waters are typically containing explosives, states Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of volatile compounds lie in our oceans.

The positions of these weapons are insufficiently recorded, partly because of sovereign limits, restricted armed forces records and the reality that documents are buried in old files. They create an detonation and safety danger, as well as threat from the persistent release of hazardous substances.

As the German government and other countries embark on extracting these relics, researchers hope to safeguard the marine communities that have formed around them. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are currently being extracted.

Researchers recommend substitute these metal carcasses left from munitions with some less dangerous, some non-dangerous materials, like possibly man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He presently hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a precedent for substituting material after explosive extraction in different areas – because also the most destructive armaments can become framework for marine organisms.