Nazi Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Mines: The Way Marine Life Prosper on Dumped Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the German shoreline lies a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and mines. Dumped from barges at the end of the second world war and left behind, countless weapons have become matted together over the years. They create a decaying carpet on the shallow, muddy ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was ignored and neglected. A increasing amount of tourists flocked to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions deteriorated.

Researchers anticipated to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, explains Andrey Vedenin.

When the first scientists went looking to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, the team expected to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, says Andrey Vedenin.

What they found surprised them. Vedenin recounts his scientists shouting with surprise when the submersible first transmitted footage. This was a great moment, he says.

Countless of marine animals had settled amid the explosives, developing a revitalized marine community more populous than the ocean bottom around it.

This marine city was evidence to the tenacity of marine life. Truly remarkable how much marine organisms we find in places that are expected to be dangerous and dangerous, he says.

In excess of 40 starfish had piled on to one exposed piece of explosive material. They were dwelling on metal shells, fuse pockets and carrying containers just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all found on the old munitions. It resembles a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of creatures that was present, states Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An mean of more than 40,000 organisms were dwelling on every meter squared of the munitions, scientists wrote in their paper on the observation. The adjacent region was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand creatures on every square metre.

It is ironic that things that are designed to kill everything are attracting so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. You can see how nature adjusts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in some way, life returns to the most hazardous places.

Man-made Features as Ocean Environments

Artificial constructions such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and undersea pipes can provide replacements, compensating for some of the lost marine environment. This research shows that munitions could be equally positive – the bloom of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be duplicated in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of arms were disposed of off the Germany's shoreline. Countless of people placed them in boats; a portion were dropped in specific sites, others just thrown overboard during transport. This is the first time experts have documented how ocean organisms has reacted.

Worldwide Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the US, retired energy installations have transformed into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in Guam

These areas become even more crucial for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and explosive disposal locations effectively serve as refuges – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of human activity is banned, explains Vedenin. Consequently a many of marine species that are otherwise scarce or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Coming Considerations

Wherever warfare has taken place in the last century, adjacent waters are usually littered with weapons, explains Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds lie in our seas.

The locations of these weapons are insufficiently documented, partly because of international boundaries, restricted military information and the reality that documents are hidden in historic archives. They present an explosion and security hazard, as well as risk from the continuous release of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and other countries start removing these artifacts, researchers plan to protect the ecosystems that have established around them. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are already being extracted.

Researchers recommend replace these metal carcasses remaining from munitions with some less dangerous, some non-dangerous structures, like maybe artificial reefs, states Vedenin.

He currently aspires that what happens in Lübeck creates a model for substituting habitats after weapon clearance in other locations – because also the most destructive explosives can become framework for ocean ecosystems.