Nazi Munitions, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Thrives on Dumped Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the German coast lies a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off boats at the end of the World War II and forgotten about, thousands munitions have accumulated over the years. They create a corroding carpet on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and neglected. A growing number of visitors came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons deteriorated.

Researchers thought to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, explains a scientist.

When the first scientists went investigating to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, the team expected to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all toxic, says the lead researcher.

What they found surprised them. Vedenin recalls his team members exclaiming in amazement when the ROV first transmitted footage. That moment was a remarkable experience, he says.

Thousands of ocean life had settled among the munitions, developing a revitalized marine community denser than the ocean bottom nearby.

This underwater metropolis was proof to the resilience of life. It is actually astonishing how much marine organisms we discover in areas that are considered toxic and dangerous, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had clustered on to one exposed piece of explosive material. They were living on steel casings, fuse pockets and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and bivalves were all observed on the old munitions. It resembles a reef ecosystem in terms of the quantity of fauna that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every meter squared of the munitions, researchers documented in their paper on the discovery. The surrounding area was much poorer in life, with only 8,000 organisms on every meter squared.

It is surprising that items that are intended to destroy everything are hosting so much life, explains Vedenin. You can see how the natural world evolves after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life returns to the most dangerous locations.

Artificial Features as Marine Environments

Artificial features such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can create replacements, compensating for some of the lost marine environment. This study demonstrates that explosives could be comparably advantageous – the bloom of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be repeated in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of arms were discarded off the Germany's coast. Thousands of workers loaded them in boats; a portion were dropped in specific locations, others just discarded at sea en route. This is the first time scientists have studied how ocean organisms has adapted.

Worldwide Instances of Ocean Adaptation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have become coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become habitat to coral off Asan in Guam

These places become even more valuable for wildlife as the seas are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and munitions areas practically act as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of human activity is prohibited, says Vedenin. Consequently a numerous of organisms that are typically rare or declining, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Considerations

Wherever warfare has occurred in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are often littered with explosives, says Vedenin. Millions of tons of explosive material remain in our oceans.

The locations of these weapons are insufficiently recorded, in part because of sovereign limits, restricted armed forces records and the reality that records are hidden in old files. They present an explosion and safety hazard, as well as danger from the ongoing emission of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and different states embark on extracting these relics, experts plan to protect the marine communities that have established nearby. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are already being cleared.

Researchers recommend replace these steel remains originating from munitions with certain less dangerous, some safe structures, like perhaps artificial reefs, suggests Vedenin.

He now aspires that what occurs in the Bay of Lübeck sets a example for replacing habitats after munitions removal in other locations – because including the most destructive weaponry can become framework for ocean ecosystems.