Nazi Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Marine Life Flourishes on Dumped Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the German shoreline rests a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off barges at the conclusion of the second world war and neglected, thousands weapons have fused into clusters over the years. They form a rusting carpet on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and neglected. A growing number of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons eroded.

Researchers anticipated to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, explains the lead researcher.

When the team went investigating to see what they were doing to the marine environment, some of us anticipated finding a barren area, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, explains a scientist.

What they found surprised them. Vedenin recounts his team members exclaiming in amazement when the underwater vehicle first relayed pictures. That moment was a great moment, he says.

Numerous of ocean life had established habitats among the weapons, developing a regenerated ecosystem more populous than the seabed around it.

This marine city was proof to the tenacity of marine life. Truly astonishing how much marine organisms we discover in places that are considered hazardous and dangerous, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one exposed piece of TNT. They were living on iron containers, ignition chambers and transport cases just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crabs, sea anemones and mussels were all observed on the old munitions. You could compare it with a coral reef in terms of the abundance of fauna that was present, says Vedenin.

Remarkable Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 animals were dwelling on every meter squared of the munitions, scientists documented in their research on the observation. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only eight thousand creatures on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that things that are intended to kill everything are drawing so much life, states Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world adapts after a major disaster such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life establishes itself to the most risky areas.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Environments

Man-made features such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can offer replacements, compensating for some of the removed marine environment. This research reveals that weapons could be similarly advantageous – the proliferation of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be duplicated elsewhere.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of arms were disposed of off the Germany's coast. Numerous of individuals transported them in vessels; a portion were deposited in designated locations, others just discarded at sea while traveling. This is the first time researchers have recorded how marine life has responded.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the US, decommissioned energy installations have become reef ecosystems
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become environments 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 marine life as the oceans are increasingly denuded by fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially serve as refuges – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of human activity is banned, says Vedenin. As a result a lot of marine species that are typically rare or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Future Issues

Anywhere warfare has happened in the last century, nearby oceans are typically strewn with weapons, states Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of volatile compounds lie in our seas.

The positions of these explosives are poorly documented, partially because of national borders, secret defense data and the fact that archives are stored in old files. They pose an explosion and security danger, as well as threat from the ongoing leakage of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and other countries start clearing these artifacts, researchers hope to preserve the ecosystems that have established nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being extracted.

We should replace these metal carcasses remaining from weapons with certain more secure, some safe structures, like maybe concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He now aspires that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a model for substituting structures after weapon clearance in different areas – because including the most harmful explosives can become scaffolding for marine organisms.