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

In the slightly salty waters off the German coast rests a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Dumped from barges at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands explosives have fused into clusters over the years. They comprise a decaying layer on the low-depth, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was overlooked and neglected. A increasing amount of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions decayed.

We initially thought to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, states a scientist.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the marine environment, the team expected to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, explains the lead researcher.

What they observed surprised them. Vedenin recalls his team members reacting with shock when the ROV first transmitted footage. It was a great moment, he says.

Numerous of ocean life had settled among the munitions, developing a revitalized habitat richer than the seabed around it.

This marine city was evidence to the tenacity of life. Indeed remarkable how much life we observe in places that are expected to be dangerous and harmful, he explains.

In excess of 40 starfish had piled on to one exposed fragment of TNT. They were living on metal shells, detonator compartments and transport cases just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crabs, sea anemones and mussels were all discovered on the old munitions. It resembles a coral reef in terms of the amount of animal life that was present, says Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An average of more than forty thousand organisms were residing on every meter squared of the explosives, researchers reported in their research on the discovery. The surrounding area was much poorer in life, with only 8,000 individuals on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that objects that are meant to kill everything are drawing so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in some way, life finds its way to the most risky locations.

Artificial Features as Marine Environments

Artificial constructions such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and pipelines can create replacements, replacing some of the lost habitat. This study shows that munitions could be equally positive – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be found in different areas.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of munitions were dumped off the German shoreline. Countless of individuals transported them in vessels; a portion were dropped in designated areas, others just dumped while traveling. This is the initial instance scientists have studied how marine life has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Adaptation

• In the United States, retired energy installations have turned into marine habitats
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become environments for creatures along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to coral off Asan in Guam

These areas become even more valuable for wildlife as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and explosive disposal locations effectively serve as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is banned, states Vedenin. As a result a lot of marine species that are otherwise rare or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Considerations

Anywhere warfare has happened in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are typically littered with weapons, says Vedenin. Millions of tons of explosive material remain in our oceans.

The sites of these explosives are poorly recorded, in part because of international boundaries, classified military information and the situation that records are buried in old files. They create an explosion and security hazard, as well as risk from the continuous emission of hazardous substances.

As Germany and different states start clearing these remains, experts hope to preserve the habitats that have formed around them. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are presently being extracted.

We should replace these metal carcasses remaining from weapons with some safer, various safe objects, like perhaps artificial reefs, says Vedenin.

He now wishes that what transpires in Lübeck creates a example for replacing material after explosive extraction in different areas – because also the most damaging armaments can become scaffolding for marine organisms.