Nazi Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Thrives on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish sea off the Germany's coast rests a collection of World War II explosives, torpedoes and naval mines. Discarded from barges at the end of the World War II and left behind, thousands weapons have fused into clusters over the years. They form a rusting layer on the low-depth, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of visitors flocked to the coastal areas and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons deteriorated.

Some of us expected to see a barren area, with no life because it was all contaminated, explains a scientist.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the marine environment, some of us anticipated finding a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all toxic, explains a scientist.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin recalls his team members exclaiming in amazement when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. This was a great moment, he notes.

Numerous of marine animals had made their homes amid the weapons, developing a renewed marine community denser than the sea floor nearby.

This underwater metropolis was evidence to the resilience of life. Indeed remarkable how much marine organisms we find in areas that are considered dangerous and risky, he says.

Over 40 starfish had gathered on to one exposed fragment of explosive material. They were living on steel casings, detonator compartments and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all observed on the old munitions. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of fauna that was there, states Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand creatures were residing on every meter squared of the explosives, researchers reported in their research on the observation. The nearby seabed was much less diverse, with only 8,000 individuals on every meter squared.

It is ironic that things that are meant to eliminate everything are hosting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adapts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life establishes itself to the most hazardous areas.

Artificial Features as Ocean Habitats

Man-made structures such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can provide replacements, compensating for some of the removed habitat. This research shows that weapons could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable to be found in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6 million tons of arms were discarded off the Germany's coast. Thousands of individuals placed them in barges; some were dropped in allocated sites, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time experts have recorded how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Instances of Ocean Adaptation

• In the US, decommissioned energy installations have turned into marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan in Guam

These locations become even more valuable for organisms as the seas are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations effectively function as refuges – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, says Vedenin. Therefore a lot of marine species that are typically rare or declining, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Future Issues

Wherever warfare has taken place in the recent history, surrounding seas are often strewn with weapons, says Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of dangerous substances lie in our seas.

The sites of these explosives are insufficiently documented, in part because of national borders, classified defense data and the fact that records are stored in old files. They present an explosion and security danger, as well as threat from the ongoing leakage of hazardous substances.

As the German government and additional nations start clearing these remains, scientists hope to preserve the marine communities that have established around them. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being extracted.

It would be wise to substitute these metal carcasses left from weapons with certain less dangerous, some harmless materials, like possibly artificial reefs, suggests Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck creates a precedent for substituting structures after munitions removal in different areas – because also the most damaging armaments can become foundation for marine organisms.