Nazi Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Thrives on Dumped Weapons

In the slightly salty waters off the Germany's coast rests a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and mines. Discarded from boats at the end of the second world war and neglected, thousands weapons have become matted together over the years. They comprise a corroding 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 neglected. A growing number of visitors traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Below the waves, the munitions decayed.

Researchers thought to see a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all poisoned, says Andrey Vedenin.

When the first scientists went searching to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, the team expected to see a desert, with no life because it was all toxic, states a scientist.

What they observed amazed them. Vedenin recounts his scientists exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first sent the images back. This was a great moment, he says.

Countless of sea creatures had settled on the explosives, creating a revitalized ecosystem denser than the seabed surrounding it.

This marine city was proof to the resilience of life. It is actually astonishing how much marine organisms we find in locations that are supposed to be dangerous and harmful, he explains.

In excess of 40 sea stars had gathered on to one exposed piece of explosive material. They were dwelling on steel casings, detonator compartments and carrying containers just a short distance from its explosive filling. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the old munitions. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the quantity of fauna that was there, states Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An mean of more than forty thousand organisms were dwelling on every meter squared of the weapons, experts wrote in their study on the observation. The adjacent region was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every meter squared.

It is ironic that objects that are designed to eliminate everything are hosting so much life, explains Vedenin. You can see how nature evolves after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most hazardous areas.

Artificial Structures as Marine Habitats

Artificial features such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and pipelines can create replacements, restoring some of the destroyed habitat. This investigation demonstrates that explosives could be comparably beneficial – the explosion of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be duplicated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6 million tons of weapons were discarded off the Germany's shoreline. Countless of individuals loaded them in boats; some were dropped in designated locations, the remainder just dumped while traveling. This is the first time experts have studied how marine life has adapted.

Worldwide Examples of Marine Adaptation

• In the US, decommissioned oil and gas structures have become reef ecosystems
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become habitats for creatures along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become environment to coral off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more valuable for organisms as the seas are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively serve as refuges – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, says Vedenin. As a result a lot of species that are usually scarce or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Coming Considerations

Wherever military conflict has occurred in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are typically strewn with explosives, explains Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of volatile compounds rest in our marine environments.

The positions of these explosives are inadequately mapped, in part because of sovereign limits, secret armed forces records and the situation that records are stored in historic archives. They pose an explosion and security risk, as well as threat from the persistent leakage of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states begin clearing these relics, experts plan to protect the habitats that have established around them. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are currently being removed.

It would be wise to replace these steel remains left from weapons with some more secure, some harmless structures, like maybe man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He currently hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a model for replacing structures after munitions removal in different areas – because including the most destructive armaments can become scaffolding for marine organisms.