Nazi Explosives, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Marine Life Prosper on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Dumped from boats at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands weapons have accumulated over the years. They comprise a rusting carpet on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons deteriorated.

We initially expected to see a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team expected to see a barren area, with no life because it was all contaminated, states the lead researcher.

What they discovered surprised them. Vedenin remembers his team members exclaiming in amazement when the ROV first transmitted footage. This was a memorable occasion, he notes.

Numerous of ocean life had made their homes among the explosives, developing a revitalized ecosystem richer than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This marine city was proof to the tenacity of marine life. Truly astonishing how much life we discover in places that are considered hazardous and harmful, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had gathered on to one accessible chunk of TNT. They were residing on metal shells, ignition chambers and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crabs, anemones and mussels were all discovered on the historic weapons. It's similar to a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of animal life that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand animals were dwelling on every square metre of the explosives, researchers reported in their study on the discovery. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only eight thousand individuals on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that objects that are intended to destroy everything are attracting so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world adapts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, life establishes itself to the most risky places.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Environments

Artificial structures such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can offer alternatives, restoring some of the lost habitat. This investigation reveals that explosives could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be found elsewhere.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6m tonnes of arms were dumped off the Germany's coast. Thousands of workers loaded them in boats; a portion were deposited in allocated locations, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the initial instance scientists have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have transformed into coral reefs
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become habitats for wildlife along the Potomac River in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for wildlife as the seas are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites effectively act as refuges – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of human activity is restricted, says Vedenin. As a result a lot of organisms that are usually rare or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Coming Factors

Wherever armed conflict has happened in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are typically strewn with explosives, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of dangerous substances lie in our oceans.

The sites of these munitions are poorly recorded, partially because of national borders, classified military information and the reality that archives are stored in historical records. They present an explosion and security hazard, as well as threat from the continuous leakage of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and additional nations start extracting these artifacts, researchers plan to protect the habitats that have formed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are already being removed.

We should replace these metal carcasses left from weapons with certain less dangerous, some safe objects, like maybe artificial reefs, states Vedenin.

He presently hopes that what happens in Lübeck creates a precedent for substituting material after weapon clearance elsewhere – because including the most damaging armaments can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.