Nazi Explosives, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Marine Life Flourishes on Discarded Weapons

In the slightly salty waters off the German coast rests a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedoes and naval mines. Thrown off boats at the end of the World War II and neglected, thousands munitions have accumulated over the decades. They create a decaying carpet on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and neglected. A increasing amount of visitors traveled to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the munitions decayed.

Researchers anticipated to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, explains the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went investigating to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, the team thought they would find a desert, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues shouting with surprise when the ROV first relayed pictures. That moment was a memorable occasion, he says.

Numerous of sea creatures had settled on the weapons, developing a renewed marine community richer than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This marine city was testament to the tenacity of life. It is actually surprising how much life we observe in places that are expected to be hazardous and dangerous, he says.

In excess of 40 sea stars had gathered on to one visible piece of TNT. They were dwelling on metal shells, fuse pockets and transport cases just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and bivalves were all found on the old munitions. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the amount of creatures that was present, says Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An average of more than forty thousand creatures were dwelling on every square metre of the weapons, researchers documented in their research on the finding. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only 8,000 creatures on every square metre.

It is ironic that objects that are meant to kill all life are attracting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adapts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life returns to the most hazardous places.

Man-made Features as Marine Environments

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can offer substitutes, replacing some of the removed marine environment. This research shows that munitions could be equally advantageous – the proliferation of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable 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. Thousands of individuals transported them in vessels; some were deposited in specific locations, the remainder just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time experts have studied how marine life has reacted.

Worldwide Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have become reef ecosystems
• Shipwrecks from the first world war have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac River in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These locations become even more crucial for wildlife as the seas are increasingly denuded by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively serve as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but virtually any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, explains Vedenin. As a result a many of species that are usually uncommon or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Future Factors

Wherever armed conflict has happened in the last century, surrounding seas are usually containing munitions, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tons of dangerous substances lie in our marine environments.

The locations of these munitions are insufficiently mapped, in part because of sovereign limits, classified military information and the situation that documents are buried in historical records. They pose an explosion and safety risk, as well as danger from the persistent release of toxic chemicals.

As the German government and different states embark on extracting these relics, experts hope to protect the ecosystems that have formed nearby. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are already being cleared.

We should substitute these iron structures originating from munitions with certain less dangerous, some non-dangerous objects, like perhaps man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He presently hopes that what transpires in Lübeck establishes a model for substituting structures after munitions removal in other locations – because including the most harmful explosives can become foundation for ocean ecosystems.