Nazi Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Mines: The Way Marine Life Flourishes on Dumped Armaments

In the brackish sea off the Germany's coast sits a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and naval mines. Discarded from barges at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, countless munitions have become matted together over the years. They create a corroding layer on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors traveled to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Below the waves, the weapons eroded.

Researchers expected to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, explains a scientist.

When the team went investigating to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, researchers expected to see a barren area, with no life because it was all toxic, says the lead researcher.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin remembers his scientists shouting with surprise when the submersible first sent the images back. This was a great moment, he says.

Countless of marine animals had settled amid the explosives, forming a renewed marine community richer than the ocean bottom around it.

This underwater metropolis was testament to the tenacity of marine life. Indeed surprising how much marine organisms we observe in areas that are supposed to be dangerous and dangerous, he says.

In excess of 40 sea stars had piled on to one accessible chunk of explosive material. They were residing on iron containers, ignition chambers and carrying containers just centimetres from its explosive filling. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the old munitions. You could compare it with a coral reef in terms of the quantity of fauna that was present, says Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were residing on every meter squared of the weapons, experts wrote in their research on the discovery. The adjacent region was much sparser, with only eight thousand individuals on every meter squared.

It is surprising that things that are intended to kill everything are drawing so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. You can see how nature adjusts after a major disaster such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most hazardous areas.

Artificial Features as Ocean Habitats

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can offer replacements, restoring some of the lost marine environment. This investigation reveals that weapons could be similarly positive – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found in other locations.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of arms were dumped off the Germany's shoreline. Countless of individuals transported them in boats; some were dropped in allocated locations, others just discarded at sea while traveling. This is the first time researchers have studied how ocean organisms has responded.

Worldwide Instances of Ocean Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned oil and gas structures have become marine habitats
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become environments for creatures along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to coral off Asan in Guam

These locations become even more valuable for wildlife as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites essentially function as refuges – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, states Vedenin. As a result a many of marine species that are otherwise uncommon or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Considerations

Anywhere armed conflict has occurred in the last century, surrounding seas are typically strewn with munitions, states Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of volatile compounds lie in our oceans.

The sites of these explosives are inadequately recorded, partly because of sovereign limits, classified armed forces records and the situation that records are stored in historical records. They pose an detonation and security risk, as well as risk from the ongoing release of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and different states start removing these artifacts, experts hope to protect the marine communities that have formed nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are presently being cleared.

It would be wise to replace these iron structures originating from munitions with certain less dangerous, various harmless objects, like maybe man-made habitats, says Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what happens in Lübeck creates a precedent for substituting habitats after explosive extraction elsewhere – because including the most destructive explosives can become scaffolding for marine organisms.