World War II Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Prosper on Discarded Weapons

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the end of the World War II and neglected, thousands munitions have become matted together over the decades. They create a corroding blanket on the low-depth, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was overlooked and neglected. A growing number of visitors traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Below the waves, the weapons deteriorated.

We initially expected to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the team went searching to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, the team expected to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all toxic, states the lead researcher.

What they found astonished them. Vedenin remembers his colleagues exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first relayed pictures. That moment was a memorable occasion, he notes.

Numerous of marine animals had made their homes amid the explosives, creating a revitalized ecosystem denser than the seabed surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was testament to the tenacity of life. It is actually astonishing how much marine organisms we discover in areas that are supposed to be toxic and risky, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had piled on to one accessible chunk of TNT. They were living on metal shells, ignition chambers and transport cases just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the old munitions. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the abundance of animal life that was there, states Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand organisms were living on every meter squared of the munitions, scientists documented in their paper on the finding. The adjacent region was much less diverse, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is ironic that objects that are intended to eliminate all life are drawing so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. One can observe how nature evolves after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life returns to the most dangerous areas.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Habitats

Artificial features such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can provide alternatives, restoring some of the destroyed habitat. This study shows that munitions could be comparably positive – the explosion of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found elsewhere.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of weapons were discarded off the Germany's coast. Countless of workers loaded them in vessels; some were deposited in allocated areas, others just discarded at sea en route. This is the first time experts have recorded how marine life has adapted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired oil and gas structures have become reef ecosystems
• Shipwrecks from the first world war have become habitats for marine life along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more important for wildlife as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations essentially function as refuges – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of human activity is banned, says Vedenin. As a result a many of species that are typically uncommon or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Coming Considerations

Wherever armed conflict has occurred in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are usually littered with munitions, explains Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds lie in our oceans.

The locations of these munitions are insufficiently recorded, in part because of national borders, classified armed forces records and the reality that archives are stored in historical records. They present an detonation and safety hazard, as well as threat from the ongoing release of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and additional nations begin extracting these relics, researchers hope to safeguard the marine communities that have established around them. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are already being extracted.

It would be wise to substitute these iron structures remaining from munitions with certain less dangerous, various non-dangerous objects, like possibly concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He currently aspires that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a model for substituting structures after explosive extraction in different areas – because even the most damaging weaponry can become framework for new life.