Nazi Explosives, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Abandoned Weapons

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, numerous munitions have become matted together over the decades. They create a rusting layer on the shallow, muddy ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists traveled to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Beneath the surface, the munitions deteriorated.

Some of us expected to see a desert, with no life because it was all toxic, states Andrey Vedenin.

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

What they found astonished them. Vedenin recalls his scientists shouting with surprise when the ROV first sent the images back. It was a great moment, he recalls.

Numerous of sea creatures had established habitats among the weapons, developing a revitalized marine community richer than the seabed surrounding it.

This marine city was proof to the persistence of marine life. Indeed astonishing how much life we observe in places that are expected to be dangerous and harmful, he states.

In excess of 40 starfish had piled on to one visible chunk of explosive material. They were residing on metal shells, fuse pockets and storage boxes just centimetres from its explosive filling. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all discovered on the historic weapons. It resembles a reef ecosystem in terms of the amount of fauna that was present, says Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand organisms were living on every meter squared of the weapons, scientists documented in their paper on the finding. The surrounding area was much less diverse, 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, states Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world evolves after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life establishes itself to the most dangerous areas.

Man-made Features as Marine Habitats

Artificial constructions such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and undersea pipes can create alternatives, compensating for some of the removed habitat. This research reveals that weapons could be similarly beneficial – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be repeated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of arms were discarded off the German coast. Thousands of people placed them in barges; a portion were dropped in allocated locations, others just dumped en route. This is the first time scientists have recorded how marine life has responded.

Worldwide Instances of Marine Adaptation

• In the US, retired drilling platforms have turned into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac River in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan beach in Guam

These places become even more valuable for wildlife as the oceans are increasingly denuded by fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and explosive disposal locations effectively serve as protected areas – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of human activity is banned, explains Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of species that are typically rare or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are prospering.

Future Considerations

Wherever warfare has taken place in the last century, nearby oceans are typically littered with explosives, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of explosive material lie in our oceans.

The sites of these explosives are insufficiently recorded, partially because of national borders, secret defense data and the fact that records are buried in historical records. They pose an explosion and safety hazard, as well as danger from the persistent leakage of hazardous substances.

As the German government and additional nations embark on extracting these remains, scientists hope to safeguard the ecosystems that have established nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are currently being removed.

It would be wise to substitute these metal carcasses remaining from munitions with certain safer, various harmless materials, like perhaps man-made habitats, says Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what occurs in Lübeck creates a example for replacing habitats after explosive extraction elsewhere – because also the most destructive explosives can become framework for new life.