World War II Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: The Way Marine Life Flourishes on Discarded Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the German coast rests a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and naval mines. Dumped from boats at the end of the World War II and left behind, thousands weapons have fused into clusters over the years. They form a corroding carpet on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the years, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and neglected. A increasing amount of tourists came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Below the waves, the munitions deteriorated.

We initially anticipated to see a desert, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, states the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went looking to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team anticipated finding a desert, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, says a scientist.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin remembers his colleagues reacting with shock when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. This was a great moment, he notes.

Thousands of sea creatures had established habitats amid the weapons, developing a renewed marine community denser than the seabed nearby.

This marine city was evidence to the resilience of life. Indeed remarkable how much life we observe in areas that are supposed to be hazardous and risky, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one accessible piece of TNT. They were residing on iron containers, fuse pockets and transport cases just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crabs, sea anemones and mussels were all discovered on the old munitions. It's similar to a coral reef in terms of the quantity of fauna that was present, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every square metre of the explosives, researchers reported in their study on the observation. The adjacent region was much sparser, with only eight thousand individuals on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that items that are meant to destroy everything are drawing so much life, says Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adapts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life finds its way to the most hazardous locations.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Environments

Man-made structures such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and undersea pipes can create substitutes, restoring some of the destroyed habitat. This research demonstrates that munitions could be equally advantageous – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable to be found elsewhere.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tons of munitions were dumped off the German coast. Countless of people loaded them in barges; some were deposited in specific locations, others just discarded at sea during transport. This is the initial instance experts have documented how marine life has adapted.

Global Examples of Marine Adaptation

• In the United States, decommissioned oil and gas structures have transformed into marine habitats
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan in Guam

These locations become even more valuable for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and explosive disposal locations effectively act as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, explains Vedenin. As a result a many of marine species that are usually scarce or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Coming Factors

Wherever military conflict has occurred in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are usually littered with explosives, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of volatile compounds remain in our seas.

The sites of these weapons are poorly recorded, in part because of national borders, secret armed forces records and the fact that records are buried in old files. They present an detonation and security hazard, as well as threat from the ongoing leakage of hazardous substances.

As Germany and additional nations embark on clearing these relics, scientists plan to preserve the habitats that have formed in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are currently being cleared.

It would be wise to replace these iron structures left from munitions with some safer, various safe structures, like maybe man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He now aspires that what happens in Lübeck creates a example for substituting material after munitions removal elsewhere – because also the most damaging weaponry can become framework for marine organisms.