Nazi Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Discarded Armaments

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and left behind, countless weapons have accumulated over the years. They create a decaying carpet on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was ignored and forgotten about. A increasing amount of visitors came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons deteriorated.

Some of us anticipated to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, explains Andrey Vedenin.

When the initial researchers went investigating to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, the team thought they would find a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all toxic, says a scientist.

What they discovered surprised them. Vedenin recalls his team members shouting with surprise when the submersible first sent the images back. That moment was a remarkable experience, he recalls.

Numerous of sea creatures had made their homes amid the weapons, creating a renewed habitat more populous than the ocean bottom nearby.

This ocean community was proof to the tenacity of life. Truly remarkable how much life we discover in places that are considered toxic and harmful, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had piled on to one exposed piece of explosive material. They were dwelling on steel casings, detonator compartments and transport cases just a short distance from its dangerous content. Marine fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all observed on the historic weapons. It resembles a coral reef in terms of the abundance of animal life that was inhabiting the area, notes Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand animals were dwelling on every square metre of the munitions, researchers wrote in their paper on the observation. The adjacent region was much sparser, with only 8,000 individuals on every square metre.

It is ironic that objects that are meant to kill all life are drawing so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. It's evident how nature adjusts after a devastating occurrence such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, life returns to the most risky areas.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Environments

Artificial structures such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can offer substitutes, replacing some of the removed habitat. This investigation demonstrates that explosives could be comparably positive – the explosion of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable to be found elsewhere.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6 million tons of arms were dumped off the German coast. Countless of people placed them in barges; a portion were deposited in designated areas, others just dumped en route. This is the initial instance experts have documented how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Examples of Ocean Transformation

• In the United States, retired oil and gas structures have turned into marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more valuable for organisms as the oceans are increasingly depleted by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites effectively serve as protected areas – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is banned, states Vedenin. As a result a many of species that are typically rare or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Coming Considerations

Wherever military conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are typically strewn with munitions, states Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of explosive material remain in our marine environments.

The positions of these weapons are poorly mapped, partially because of international boundaries, classified military information and the fact that archives are stored in historical records. They create an explosion and safety danger, as well as danger from the persistent release of hazardous substances.

As Germany and additional nations embark on removing these relics, scientists plan to safeguard the ecosystems that have developed nearby. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are currently being removed.

We should replace these metal carcasses originating from munitions with some safer, various harmless objects, like perhaps concrete structures, states Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what happens in Lübeck creates a precedent for substituting habitats after weapon clearance in different areas – because including the most destructive explosives can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.