World War II Explosives, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Marine Life Flourishes on Dumped Armaments

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off boats at the end of the World War II and left behind, thousands weapons have fused into clusters over the years. They form a decaying layer on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists flocked to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions decayed.

Researchers expected to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, says Andrey Vedenin.

When the initial researchers went looking to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team anticipated finding a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all toxic, states the lead researcher.

What they found astonished them. Vedenin recounts his scientists shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. It was a great moment, he says.

Thousands of marine animals had established habitats on the munitions, forming a renewed ecosystem more populous than the ocean bottom nearby.

This ocean community was proof to the tenacity of marine life. Truly remarkable how much marine organisms we find in areas that are considered hazardous and harmful, he states.

Over 40 starfish had clustered on to one visible chunk of TNT. They were residing on steel casings, fuse pockets and carrying containers just a short distance from its dangerous content. Marine fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a reef ecosystem in terms of the amount of fauna that was inhabiting the area, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An mean of more than forty thousand creatures were living on every meter squared of the weapons, scientists reported in their study on the discovery. The nearby seabed was much poorer in life, with only 8,000 individuals on every square metre.

It is surprising that objects that are designed to destroy all life are drawing so much life, explains Vedenin. You can see how nature evolves after a major disaster such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life finds its way to the most dangerous areas.

Artificial Structures as Marine Environments

Artificial constructions such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, drilling platforms and pipelines can provide alternatives, compensating for some of the destroyed marine environment. This study demonstrates that munitions could be comparably beneficial – the explosion of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be found in other locations.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6 million tonnes of munitions were dumped off the Germany's coast. Numerous of people transported them in vessels; a portion were dropped in designated areas, the remainder just thrown overboard during transport. This is the first time experts have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Instances of Ocean Transformation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have become marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan in Guam

These areas become even more valuable for organisms as the oceans are increasingly denuded by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Sunken ships and munitions areas essentially act as refuges – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, explains Vedenin. Consequently a many of species that are typically rare or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Coming Considerations

Wherever military conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are usually strewn with weapons, states Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds remain in our seas.

The locations of these munitions are inadequately mapped, in part because of national borders, secret military information and the fact that archives are hidden in historical records. They pose an detonation and safety hazard, as well as danger from the ongoing leakage of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states begin removing these artifacts, researchers plan to preserve the ecosystems that have formed around them. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being removed.

We should replace these steel remains left from munitions with certain less dangerous, some safe materials, like maybe artificial reefs, states Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what happens in Lübeck sets a model for substituting habitats after munitions removal in different areas – because including the most harmful weaponry can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.