Nazi Explosives, Torpedoes and Mines: The Way Marine Life Flourishes on Dumped Armaments

In the brackish sea off the German shoreline lies a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and mines. Discarded from barges at the end of the second world war and neglected, numerous weapons have become matted together over the decades. They form a rusting blanket on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons deteriorated.

Some of us anticipated to see a desert, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains Andrey Vedenin.

When the team went investigating to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team thought they would find a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, explains a scientist.

What they discovered amazed them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. That moment was a great moment, he recalls.

Thousands of marine animals had made their homes amid the weapons, forming a regenerated marine community more populous than the ocean bottom nearby.

This ocean community was testament to the persistence of marine life. It is actually astonishing how much life we observe in places that are considered dangerous and dangerous, he states.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one accessible piece of TNT. They were residing on metal shells, fuse pockets and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was there, says Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand animals were dwelling on every square metre of the explosives, experts wrote in their research on the finding. The adjacent region was much less diverse, with only 8,000 individuals on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that objects that are designed to kill everything are hosting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. One can observe how nature adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, life finds its way to the most dangerous locations.

Man-made Structures as Marine Environments

Artificial features such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can provide replacements, restoring some of the removed marine environment. This study reveals that explosives could be similarly advantageous – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable to be found in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of weapons were disposed of off the Germany's coast. Countless of people loaded them in vessels; a portion were dropped in specific sites, others just dumped while traveling. This is the first time scientists have documented how marine life has reacted.

Worldwide Examples of Ocean Transformation

• In the United States, retired energy installations have turned into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become environments for marine life along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become environment to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These areas become even more crucial for organisms as the oceans are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially function as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of human activity is restricted, explains Vedenin. Consequently a many of organisms that are otherwise scarce or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Considerations

Wherever military conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are typically containing weapons, says Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of dangerous substances lie in our seas.

The sites of these explosives are insufficiently documented, partially because of international boundaries, restricted armed forces records and the fact that records are buried in old files. They present an explosion and safety hazard, as well as risk from the continuous leakage of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and different states embark on extracting these artifacts, researchers aim to preserve the ecosystems that have formed around them. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are already being extracted.

We should replace these metal carcasses left from munitions with some less dangerous, various non-dangerous materials, like perhaps concrete structures, states Vedenin.

He now aspires that what happens in Lübeck sets a model for replacing habitats after weapon clearance elsewhere – because also the most destructive weaponry can become framework for new life.