World War II Munitions, Torpedoes and Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Discarded Armaments

In the brackish sea off the German shoreline rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off barges at the conclusion of the World War II and forgotten about, numerous explosives have become matted together over the years. They form a corroding layer on the low-depth, silty ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was ignored and neglected. A growing number of visitors traveled to the coastal areas and calm waters for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Below the waves, the weapons decayed.

Researchers thought to see a desert, with no life because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went investigating to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, the team expected to see a barren area, with no life because it was all poisoned, explains the lead researcher.

What they discovered amazed them. Vedenin recounts his team members shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first relayed pictures. This was a great moment, he recalls.

Countless of ocean life had established habitats among the munitions, forming a renewed ecosystem richer than the seabed surrounding it.

This marine city was testament to the persistence of marine life. Truly remarkable how much life we find in locations that are expected to be hazardous and risky, he states.

More than 40 starfish had clustered on to one exposed chunk of explosive material. They were dwelling on iron containers, detonator compartments and carrying containers just centimetres from its explosive filling. Marine fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of animal life that was there, notes Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An mean of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every square metre of the munitions, experts reported in their paper on the discovery. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only 8,000 individuals on every square metre.

It is surprising that things that are intended to eliminate all life are drawing so much life, says Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world adapts after a major disaster such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life returns to the most dangerous locations.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Environments

Artificial features such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can offer alternatives, replacing some of the destroyed habitat. This research demonstrates that explosives could be comparably beneficial – the explosion of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be repeated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of arms were discarded off the German shoreline. Thousands of workers placed them in boats; a portion were deposited in specific sites, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time experts have recorded how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned oil and gas structures have turned into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the first world war have become habitats for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively act as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, states Vedenin. As a result a many of marine species that are usually rare or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are prospering.

Future Considerations

Wherever military conflict has happened in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are often strewn with munitions, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tons of volatile compounds remain in our seas.

The sites of these explosives are poorly documented, partly because of sovereign limits, secret military information and the reality that archives are stored in old files. They create an detonation and safety risk, as well as threat from the continuous leakage of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and additional nations embark on extracting these relics, scientists plan to safeguard the ecosystems that have developed nearby. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are presently being extracted.

It would be wise to substitute these steel remains left from munitions with some more secure, some harmless structures, like perhaps concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a example for substituting material after explosive extraction elsewhere – because also the most harmful weaponry can become scaffolding for new life.