Nazi Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Thrives on Dumped Armaments

In the brackish sea off the German coast rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and naval mines. Thrown off boats at the conclusion of the World War II and left behind, thousands explosives have become matted together over the decades. They comprise a rusting layer on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and neglected. A growing number of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions eroded.

We initially expected to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, explains a scientist.

When the team went investigating to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, some of us expected to see a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all toxic, states the lead researcher.

What they found surprised them. Vedenin remembers his team members exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first sent the images back. It was a great moment, he notes.

Thousands of sea creatures had made their homes amid the munitions, developing a renewed marine community richer than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was testament to the persistence of life. Indeed remarkable how much marine organisms we find in locations that are supposed to be dangerous and harmful, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one visible chunk of TNT. They were dwelling on iron containers, detonator compartments and transport cases just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all found on the historic weapons. It's similar to a marine reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was there, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand animals were living on every meter squared of the munitions, scientists documented in their paper on the discovery. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only 8,000 organisms on every meter squared.

It is ironic that items that are meant to eliminate all life are attracting so much life, explains Vedenin. One can observe how nature evolves after a major disaster such as the second world war and how, in some way, marine life finds its way to the most risky areas.

Man-made Structures as Marine Habitats

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can create substitutes, compensating for some of the destroyed habitat. This research shows that weapons could be comparably positive – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be repeated elsewhere.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of weapons were discarded off the Germany's shoreline. Numerous of people loaded them in vessels; some were deposited in designated locations, others just dumped en route. This is the first time researchers have documented how ocean organisms has responded.

Worldwide Instances of Marine Adaptation

• In the US, retired oil and gas structures have transformed into coral reefs
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan beach in Guam

These places become even more important for organisms as the seas are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially function as refuges – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, states Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of organisms that are usually rare or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Factors

Anywhere warfare has taken place in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are typically littered with munitions, states Vedenin. Many millions of tons of volatile compounds remain in our marine environments.

The sites of these weapons are poorly documented, partly because of international boundaries, classified armed forces records and the situation that records are buried in historic archives. They pose an explosion and safety danger, as well as danger from the continuous leakage of hazardous substances.

As Germany and other countries start extracting these relics, experts aim to safeguard the marine communities that have established around them. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are already being removed.

Researchers recommend substitute these steel remains originating from munitions with some less dangerous, some non-dangerous structures, like possibly concrete structures, states Vedenin.

He now hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck sets a model for substituting material after explosive extraction elsewhere – because including the most damaging armaments can become foundation for new life.