World War II Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Mines: The Way Marine Life Prosper on Discarded Weapons

In the brackish sea off the Germany's shoreline rests a collection of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Thrown off vessels at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands explosives have fused into clusters over the decades. They comprise a decaying layer on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors traveled to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions decayed.

Researchers anticipated to see a barren area, with no life because it was all poisoned, states the lead researcher.

When the team went searching to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, researchers expected to see a desert, with no organisms because it was all toxic, states a scientist.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin recalls his scientists reacting with shock when the submersible first transmitted footage. That moment was a remarkable experience, he says.

Thousands of marine animals had established habitats amid the munitions, forming a regenerated marine community more populous than the sea floor around it.

This ocean community was evidence to the tenacity of marine life. Truly surprising how much life we discover in areas that are considered hazardous and risky, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had gathered on to one accessible fragment of TNT. They were living on iron containers, ignition chambers and storage boxes just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the old munitions. You could compare it with a coral reef in terms of the quantity of creatures that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand creatures were living on every square metre of the munitions, researchers wrote in their paper on the finding. The nearby seabed was much less diverse, with only eight thousand individuals on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that things that are intended to kill everything are attracting so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world adapts after a major disaster such as the second world war and how, in some way, marine life returns to the most dangerous places.

Artificial Features as Marine Habitats

Man-made structures such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can offer replacements, replacing some of the destroyed marine environment. This research shows that weapons could be similarly positive – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be found in different areas.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of weapons were disposed of off the Germany's shoreline. Numerous of workers placed them in vessels; a portion were deposited in designated locations, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the initial instance scientists have recorded how marine life has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the US, decommissioned energy installations have become marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to coral off Asan beach in Guam

These areas become even more important for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites essentially serve as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is banned, says Vedenin. Consequently a lot of organisms that are usually rare or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Coming Considerations

Wherever military conflict has taken place in the recent history, nearby oceans are typically littered with weapons, says Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of dangerous substances lie in our seas.

The locations of these explosives are poorly documented, partially because of sovereign limits, classified defense data and the reality that archives are stored in historical records. They create an explosion and safety hazard, as well as danger from the persistent leakage of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states embark on removing these remains, scientists hope to protect the ecosystems that have established around them. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are currently being removed.

We should substitute these metal carcasses left from weapons with certain safer, various safe objects, like possibly concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what happens in Lübeck sets a precedent for substituting habitats after explosive extraction in other locations – because even the most damaging weaponry can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.