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

In the slightly salty waters off the German coast lies a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, countless weapons have become matted together over the decades. They form a rusting layer on the low-depth, muddy seafloor 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 traveled to the coastal areas and calm waters for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the munitions deteriorated.

Researchers anticipated to see a barren area, with no life because it was all contaminated, states a scientist.

When the initial researchers went searching to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, researchers expected to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, says a scientist.

What they observed amazed them. Vedenin recalls his team members exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first relayed pictures. That moment was a great moment, he says.

Thousands of marine animals had settled amid the munitions, developing a regenerated ecosystem richer than the sea floor surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was evidence to the tenacity of marine life. Indeed remarkable how much life we find in locations that are considered dangerous and harmful, he explains.

In excess of 40 sea stars had piled on to one visible piece of TNT. They were dwelling on iron containers, ignition chambers and transport cases just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the old munitions. It resembles a coral reef in terms of the amount of fauna that was present, says Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An mean of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every meter squared of the explosives, experts wrote in their paper on the observation. The nearby seabed was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand individuals on every meter squared.

It is ironic that things that are intended to eliminate everything are attracting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most risky locations.

Man-made Features as Marine Environments

Artificial features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can create substitutes, compensating for some of the destroyed habitat. This study shows that weapons could be comparably beneficial – the bloom of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be found in other locations.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of munitions were dumped off the German shoreline. Thousands of individuals transported them in boats; a portion were dropped in allocated locations, others just dumped while traveling. This is the first time experts have studied how ocean organisms has reacted.

Worldwide Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the US, retired drilling platforms have turned into marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become habitats for creatures along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to coral off Asan in Guam

These locations become even more crucial for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly depleted by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially act as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of human activity is prohibited, states Vedenin. As a result a numerous of species that are usually scarce or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Issues

Wherever warfare has taken place in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are often littered with explosives, states Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of explosive material rest in our seas.

The locations of these explosives are poorly mapped, in part because of national borders, restricted military information and the situation that documents are hidden in historic archives. They create an explosion and safety risk, as well as danger from the persistent leakage of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states start clearing these remains, researchers hope to safeguard the ecosystems that have formed in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being cleared.

It would be wise to replace these steel remains left from weapons with some more secure, some non-dangerous structures, like perhaps concrete structures, states Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what happens in Lübeck establishes a precedent for substituting habitats after explosive extraction in other locations – because also the most destructive explosives can become framework for marine organisms.