World War II Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish waters off the German coast lies a collection of World War II explosives, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands munitions have accumulated over the years. They comprise a corroding carpet on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic.

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

We initially anticipated to see a barren area, with no life because it was all contaminated, says Andrey Vedenin.

When the first scientists went investigating to see what they were doing to the marine environment, some of us expected to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, explains the lead researcher.

What they observed amazed them. Vedenin remembers his team members exclaiming in amazement when the ROV first transmitted footage. That moment was a great moment, he notes.

Thousands of ocean life had settled amid the munitions, creating a renewed ecosystem richer than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This ocean community was proof to the resilience of life. It is actually surprising how much marine organisms we find in places that are considered toxic and risky, he states.

In excess of 40 starfish had piled on to one visible fragment of TNT. They were residing on metal shells, fuse pockets and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all observed on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was present, says Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An mean of more than forty thousand organisms were dwelling on every square metre of the weapons, experts documented in their paper on the finding. The adjacent region was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that things that are meant to kill everything are attracting so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adapts after a major disaster such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, life finds its way to the most risky locations.

Man-made Features as Ocean Environments

Man-made constructions such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and undersea pipes can create substitutes, restoring some of the destroyed marine environment. This research demonstrates that weapons could be comparably positive – the explosion of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of weapons were dumped off the German shoreline. Countless of individuals transported them in vessels; some were placed in specific sites, the remainder just dumped while traveling. This is the initial instance experts have documented how marine life has responded.

Global Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired oil and gas structures have turned into marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become homes for marine life along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These locations become even more valuable for organisms as the marine environments are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively serve as refuges – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, explains Vedenin. As a result a many of species that are typically rare or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Future Factors

Wherever warfare has happened in the last century, adjacent waters are usually littered with munitions, states Vedenin. Many millions of tons of volatile compounds rest in our oceans.

The locations of these weapons are insufficiently mapped, partially because of international boundaries, secret defense data and the fact that records are buried in historical records. They present an explosion and security danger, as well as risk from the persistent leakage of hazardous substances.

As Germany and additional nations embark on clearing these remains, experts hope to safeguard the ecosystems that have established in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are currently being extracted.

We should substitute these metal carcasses originating from munitions with certain less dangerous, various safe materials, like perhaps concrete structures, says Vedenin.

He currently aspires that what occurs in Lübeck establishes a precedent for substituting material after weapon clearance in other locations – because also the most harmful weaponry can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.