Nazi Munitions, Torpedoes and Mines: The Way Marine Life Prosper on Discarded Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the Germany's coast lies a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off barges at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, numerous munitions have accumulated over the decades. They create a rusting carpet on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was ignored and neglected. A increasing amount of tourists traveled to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Below the waves, the weapons eroded.

We initially expected to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went investigating to see what they were doing to the marine environment, some of us thought they would find a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all contaminated, states Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered amazed them. Vedenin remembers his team members exclaiming in amazement when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. That moment was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Countless of ocean life had made their homes on the munitions, creating a renewed ecosystem denser than the ocean bottom around it.

This marine city was proof to the tenacity of marine life. It is actually remarkable how much life we discover in locations that are considered dangerous and harmful, he states.

More than 40 starfish had piled on to one accessible chunk of TNT. They were residing on steel casings, fuse pockets and storage boxes just a short distance from its explosive filling. Marine fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and bivalves were all found on the old munitions. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the abundance of creatures that was inhabiting the area, states Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand animals were living on every square metre of the weapons, scientists wrote in their study on the observation. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only 8,000 organisms on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that things that are designed to kill everything are drawing so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world evolves after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life establishes itself to the most risky areas.

Man-made Structures as Marine Environments

Man-made structures such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can provide substitutes, compensating for some of the removed marine environment. This investigation reveals that explosives could be equally positive – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is expected to be duplicated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of weapons were disposed of off the Germany's coast. Countless of people loaded them in vessels; some were placed in specific sites, others just discarded at sea during transport. This is the initial instance experts have documented how marine life has adapted.

Worldwide Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired energy installations have transformed into coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become habitats for creatures along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become habitat to coral off Asan beach in Guam

These areas become even more valuable for wildlife as the oceans are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially act as protected areas – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, states Vedenin. As a result a numerous of marine species that are usually scarce or declining, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Issues

Wherever warfare has occurred in the last century, surrounding seas are usually strewn with explosives, explains Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds remain in our marine environments.

The locations of these munitions are inadequately recorded, partly because of sovereign limits, secret defense data and the reality that documents are stored in old files. They pose an explosion and safety risk, as well as risk from the ongoing emission of hazardous substances.

As Germany and other countries embark on clearing these remains, researchers hope to protect the habitats that have formed nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are already being removed.

It would be wise to replace these metal carcasses left from weapons with some more secure, some non-dangerous objects, like maybe man-made habitats, says Vedenin.

He now aspires that what occurs in Lübeck establishes a example for substituting structures after explosive extraction in different areas – because also the most damaging explosives can become scaffolding for marine organisms.