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

In the slightly salty sea off the German coast lies a collection of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and naval mines. Dumped from boats at the end of the World War II and forgotten about, thousands explosives have fused into clusters over the years. They create a decaying carpet on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Below the waves, the weapons decayed.

Some of us thought to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the team went searching to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, some of us expected to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, states a scientist.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin recounts his team members shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. It was a great moment, he says.

Thousands of marine animals had established habitats amid the explosives, developing a renewed marine community denser than the sea floor nearby.

This marine city was evidence to the tenacity of life. Indeed surprising how much life we discover in locations that are expected to be hazardous and harmful, he explains.

More than 40 sea stars had clustered on to one accessible fragment of explosive material. They were dwelling on steel casings, fuse pockets and transport cases just a short distance from its explosive filling. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all found on the old munitions. It resembles a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of fauna that was there, notes Vedenin.

Remarkable Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 organisms were dwelling on every square metre of the explosives, scientists reported in their paper on the finding. The nearby seabed was much less diverse, with only 8,000 individuals on every meter squared.

It is ironic that items that are intended to eliminate everything are drawing so much life, states Vedenin. One can observe how nature adapts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life returns to the most hazardous places.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Habitats

Man-made constructions such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and pipelines can offer alternatives, restoring some of the destroyed marine environment. This investigation reveals that explosives could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found in different areas.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6 million tonnes of munitions were dumped off the Germany's shoreline. Numerous of individuals placed them in boats; a portion were dropped in allocated locations, the remainder just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time scientists have studied how marine life has reacted.

Global Instances of Ocean Adaptation

• In the United States, decommissioned energy installations have transformed into reef ecosystems
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to coral off Asan beach in Guam

These areas become even more crucial for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially serve as protected areas – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of human activity is banned, explains Vedenin. Consequently a lot of species that are otherwise scarce or declining, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Future Factors

Wherever warfare has occurred in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are typically strewn with weapons, states Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of dangerous substances rest in our oceans.

The locations of these weapons are poorly recorded, partially because of sovereign limits, restricted defense data and the situation that archives are buried in historical records. They pose an detonation and safety risk, as well as risk from the continuous leakage of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and different states start removing these artifacts, experts aim to preserve the ecosystems that have formed nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck explosives are already being cleared.

Researchers recommend replace these metal carcasses remaining from weapons with certain more secure, various safe structures, like perhaps concrete structures, says Vedenin.

He currently wishes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck sets a precedent for substituting structures after explosive extraction in different areas – because even the most damaging armaments can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.