World War II Munitions, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Thrives on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish waters off the Germany's shoreline sits a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the conclusion of the second world war and left behind, countless explosives have accumulated over the years. They create a rusting blanket on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Below the waves, the weapons decayed.

Some of us anticipated to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all toxic, explains Andrey Vedenin.

When the initial researchers went looking to see what they were doing to the marine environment, some of us anticipated finding a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all contaminated, states Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin recounts his team members exclaiming in amazement when the ROV first transmitted footage. That moment was a great moment, he notes.

Thousands of ocean life had made their homes on the weapons, forming a regenerated marine community more populous than the seabed surrounding it.

This marine city was proof to the tenacity of marine life. Truly remarkable how much life we observe in areas that are supposed to be hazardous and risky, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had gathered on to one accessible chunk of TNT. They were living on metal shells, ignition chambers and carrying containers just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves 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.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every meter squared of the munitions, scientists reported in their paper on the observation. The adjacent region was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand creatures on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that objects that are intended to destroy all life are attracting so much life, states Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world evolves after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most dangerous areas.

Man-made Structures as Marine Habitats

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can create alternatives, restoring some of the lost habitat. This study reveals that weapons could be similarly beneficial – the proliferation of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of arms were discarded off the Germany's shoreline. Numerous of people placed them in barges; some were dropped in allocated areas, the remainder just discarded at sea en route. This is the initial instance experts have studied how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Instances of Ocean Transformation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have become coral reefs
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become environments for creatures along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These locations become even more valuable for marine life as the oceans are increasingly depleted by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations effectively serve as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of human activity is prohibited, says Vedenin. Therefore a lot of marine species that are typically scarce or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Future Considerations

Anywhere military conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are typically containing weapons, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tons of dangerous substances rest in our oceans.

The sites of these munitions are inadequately documented, partly because of sovereign limits, classified military information and the reality that archives are buried in historical records. They present an detonation and security risk, as well as risk from the continuous release of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and different states start clearing these relics, scientists aim to protect the ecosystems that have developed nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck explosives are presently being removed.

It would be wise to replace these steel remains remaining from munitions with some less dangerous, various harmless materials, like possibly concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He now wishes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a model for replacing habitats after munitions removal elsewhere – because including the most destructive armaments can become scaffolding for new life.