World War II Bombs, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Abandoned Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the German shoreline rests a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off vessels at the end of the World War II and left behind, thousands weapons have accumulated over the years. They comprise a rusting blanket on the low-depth, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of visitors came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the munitions deteriorated.

We initially thought to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, states the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went searching to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, researchers thought they would find a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains a scientist.

What they discovered amazed them. Vedenin remembers his team members reacting with shock when the submersible first sent the images back. This was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Numerous of marine animals had settled amid the weapons, developing a regenerated ecosystem denser than the seabed nearby.

This underwater metropolis was proof to the persistence of marine life. Truly surprising how much life we find in places that are expected to be dangerous and harmful, he states.

More than 40 sea stars had gathered on to one visible chunk of explosive material. They were living on metal shells, ignition chambers and storage boxes just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a coral reef in terms of the abundance of creatures that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An mean of more than forty thousand animals were living on every meter squared of the munitions, researchers reported in their paper on the discovery. The adjacent region was much less diverse, with only 8,000 individuals on every meter squared.

It is surprising that things that are meant to destroy everything are drawing so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world evolves after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life finds its way to the most risky areas.

Artificial Structures as Marine Habitats

Man-made features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can provide replacements, restoring some of the removed habitat. This investigation demonstrates that explosives could be comparably beneficial – the bloom of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be repeated in other locations.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tons of munitions were dumped off the Germany's shoreline. Numerous of people transported them in boats; some were deposited in specific areas, others just discarded at sea during transport. This is the first time experts have studied how marine life has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned drilling platforms have transformed into reef ecosystems
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become environments for creatures along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become environment to coral off Asan in Guam

These places become even more important for wildlife as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Sunken ships and munitions areas practically function as sanctuaries – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, states Vedenin. Consequently a many of marine species that are typically rare or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Issues

Wherever warfare has happened in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are often littered with explosives, states Vedenin. Millions of tons of explosive material rest in our marine environments.

The locations of these weapons are poorly documented, in part because of sovereign limits, classified defense data and the fact that records are stored in old files. They present an detonation and security danger, as well as risk from the continuous emission of hazardous substances.

As Germany and different states start extracting these relics, experts plan to preserve the habitats that have formed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are presently being removed.

We should substitute these steel remains left from weapons with certain safer, some safe objects, like maybe man-made habitats, says Vedenin.

He now hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a precedent for substituting habitats after weapon clearance elsewhere – because also the most damaging explosives can become scaffolding for new life.