World War II Bombs, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Prosper on Dumped Weapons

In the brackish waters off the German shoreline rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and naval mines. Thrown off vessels at the conclusion of the World War II and forgotten about, thousands munitions have become matted together over the decades. They comprise a rusting blanket on the low-depth, muddy 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 came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons eroded.

Some of us anticipated to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, says a scientist.

When the first scientists went looking to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team anticipated finding a desert, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, says Andrey Vedenin.

What they observed surprised them. Vedenin recalls his team members shouting with surprise when the ROV first sent the images back. That moment was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Thousands of marine animals had made their homes on the explosives, developing a revitalized habitat more populous than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This ocean community was evidence to the resilience of life. It is actually remarkable how much life we find in locations that are considered dangerous and risky, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had gathered on to one visible piece of explosive material. They were living on iron containers, ignition chambers and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and mussels were all discovered on the historic weapons. It resembles a coral reef in terms of the amount of animal life that was present, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 animals were residing on every square metre of the weapons, scientists wrote in their research on the discovery. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only eight thousand individuals on every square metre.

It is ironic that things that are meant to eliminate everything are attracting so much life, says Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world adapts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life establishes itself to the most dangerous places.

Man-made Features as Marine Environments

Man-made features such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and undersea pipes can provide substitutes, compensating for some of the removed marine environment. This research shows that weapons could be equally positive – the bloom of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be repeated in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of munitions were dumped off the German shoreline. Numerous of people transported them in barges; some were deposited in designated locations, others just dumped during transport. This is the initial instance researchers have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned energy installations have turned into reef ecosystems
• Sunken ships from the first world war have become homes for creatures along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to reef-building organisms off Asan in Guam

These areas become even more important for organisms as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively function as refuges – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of human activity is banned, explains Vedenin. Consequently a lot of organisms that are usually scarce or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Coming Factors

Anywhere armed conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are often strewn with weapons, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of volatile compounds rest in our marine environments.

The locations of these weapons are poorly recorded, partly because of national borders, secret defense data and the fact that archives are buried in historical records. They pose an explosion and safety hazard, as well as threat from the persistent leakage of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and other countries embark on removing these relics, researchers hope to protect the marine communities that have formed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are already being extracted.

We should replace these iron structures originating from weapons with some more secure, various safe objects, like maybe concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He currently wishes that what happens in Lübeck creates a model for replacing habitats after weapon clearance elsewhere – because also the most harmful armaments can become scaffolding for new life.