World War II Bombs, Torpedoes and Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Discarded Armaments

In the slightly salty sea off the Germany's shoreline lies a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Discarded from barges at the conclusion of the second world war and left behind, countless munitions have become matted together over the years. They comprise a corroding layer on the low-depth, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Beneath the surface, the munitions decayed.

Researchers thought to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, says a scientist.

When the initial researchers went searching to see what they were doing to the marine environment, the team expected to see a desert, with no life because it was all poisoned, explains a scientist.

What they observed amazed them. Vedenin recalls his team members shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. That moment was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Thousands of ocean life had established habitats among the explosives, creating a revitalized habitat richer than the seabed surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was evidence to the persistence of marine life. Indeed surprising how much life we observe in locations that are expected to be hazardous and harmful, he says.

Over 40 starfish had piled on to one accessible fragment of TNT. They were dwelling on metal shells, fuse pockets and storage boxes just centimetres from its explosive filling. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and mussels were all found on the discarded explosives. It's similar to a coral reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was present, states Vedenin.

Remarkable Population Density

An mean of more than 40,000 organisms were residing on every meter squared of the munitions, researchers documented in their paper on the observation. The surrounding area was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is surprising that things that are meant to destroy everything are drawing so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adapts after a major disaster such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most dangerous places.

Artificial Features as Marine Habitats

Artificial features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and pipelines can offer alternatives, restoring some of the removed marine environment. This study reveals that weapons could be similarly positive – the proliferation of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be found in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6m tonnes of weapons were dumped off the German coast. Countless of people loaded them in boats; a portion were placed in specific areas, the remainder just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time scientists have documented how ocean organisms has adapted.

Worldwide Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned drilling platforms have transformed into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the first world war have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for wildlife as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively act as protected areas – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, says Vedenin. Consequently a many of marine species that are usually uncommon or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Future Factors

Wherever warfare has taken place in the last century, nearby oceans are usually strewn with munitions, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tons of explosive material lie in our marine environments.

The sites of these munitions are inadequately recorded, partly because of national borders, restricted defense data and the situation that records are hidden in historical records. They present an explosion and safety hazard, as well as risk from the persistent release of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and other countries embark on removing these remains, researchers hope to safeguard the habitats that have developed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are already being extracted.

It would be wise to replace these metal carcasses left from weapons with some safer, various non-dangerous objects, like perhaps man-made habitats, states Vedenin.

He currently hopes that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a model for substituting habitats after explosive extraction in different areas – because including the most destructive explosives can become framework for marine organisms.