Nazi Bombs, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Ocean Creatures Thrives on Abandoned Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the Germany's coast rests a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedoes and naval mines. Thrown off vessels at the end of the second world war and neglected, countless weapons have fused into clusters over the decades. They create a rusting carpet on the shallow, muddy ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and neglected. A growing number of visitors traveled to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons eroded.

We initially expected to see a desert, with no life because it was all poisoned, says the lead researcher.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, researchers thought they would find a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first relayed pictures. This was a great moment, he recalls.

Numerous of sea creatures had established habitats amid the explosives, developing a revitalized ecosystem denser than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This ocean community was evidence to the resilience of life. It is actually remarkable how much marine organisms we discover in places that are considered dangerous and dangerous, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had gathered on to one visible chunk of TNT. They were dwelling on steel casings, fuse pockets and storage boxes just a short distance from its volatile core. Marine fish, crabs, sea anemones and mussels were all discovered on the old munitions. You could compare it with a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of creatures that was present, says Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An mean of more than 40,000 animals were residing on every meter squared of the munitions, scientists documented in their research on the discovery. The adjacent region was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand creatures on every meter squared.

It is ironic that items that are meant to kill everything are drawing so much life, states Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world evolves after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in some way, life returns to the most hazardous places.

Artificial Features as Ocean Environments

Man-made constructions such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and undersea pipes can provide alternatives, compensating for some of the lost habitat. This research demonstrates that explosives could be comparably positive – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be repeated in other locations.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6 million tons of munitions were disposed of off the German shoreline. Countless of workers placed them in boats; some were placed in allocated locations, the remainder just dumped while traveling. This is the first time experts have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Examples of Ocean Transformation

• In the US, retired oil and gas structures have transformed into marine habitats
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become environments for marine life along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to coral off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These areas become even more important for wildlife as the seas are increasingly denuded by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and munitions areas essentially act as protected areas – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of human activity is restricted, states Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of marine species that are typically scarce or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Coming Issues

Wherever military conflict has taken place in the recent history, adjacent waters are usually containing munitions, explains Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds lie in our seas.

The sites of these munitions are poorly recorded, partly because of national borders, restricted armed forces records and the reality that records are stored in historical records. They present an detonation and security danger, as well as danger from the persistent release of toxic chemicals.

As the German government and different states embark on extracting these artifacts, experts plan to safeguard the habitats that have formed nearby. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are currently being extracted.

We should replace these iron structures remaining from weapons with certain more secure, various non-dangerous structures, like perhaps artificial reefs, says Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what happens in Lübeck sets a model for substituting habitats after munitions removal in other locations – because including the most damaging armaments can become framework for ocean ecosystems.