Nazi Explosives, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: The Way Marine Life Prosper on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish sea off the Germany's coast sits a collection of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and mines. Discarded from vessels at the conclusion of the World War II and left behind, thousands munitions have accumulated over the decades. They comprise a decaying layer on the low-depth, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was ignored and neglected. A increasing amount of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.

Researchers anticipated to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, says the lead researcher.

When the team went investigating to see what they were doing to the marine environment, the team expected to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, explains a scientist.

What they observed astonished them. Vedenin remembers his team members shouting with surprise when the submersible first relayed pictures. This was a great moment, he recalls.

Countless of sea creatures had made their homes amid the explosives, forming a regenerated marine community denser than the sea floor around it.

This underwater metropolis was testament to the persistence of life. It is actually surprising how much life we discover in places that are considered toxic and risky, he states.

In excess of 40 starfish had clustered on to one accessible fragment of TNT. They were dwelling on metal shells, fuse pockets and storage boxes just a short distance from its volatile core. Marine fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and mussels were all observed on the old munitions. You could compare it with a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of creatures that was there, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An mean of more than forty thousand creatures were living on every square metre of the explosives, experts wrote in their research on the observation. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only 8,000 creatures on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that objects that are meant to eliminate everything are hosting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. You can see how the natural world evolves after a devastating occurrence such as the second world war and how, in some way, life returns to the most risky locations.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Habitats

Man-made structures such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and pipelines can create substitutes, compensating for some of the destroyed marine environment. This research reveals that weapons could be comparably advantageous – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is expected to be found elsewhere.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6 million tonnes of weapons were dumped off the German coast. Thousands of people placed them in vessels; a portion were dropped in specific areas, others just thrown overboard while traveling. This is the initial instance experts have documented how marine life has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, decommissioned oil and gas structures have become coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become homes for creatures along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for wildlife as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations effectively function as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, explains Vedenin. Consequently a many of species that are typically uncommon or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Issues

Wherever military conflict has happened in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are often containing weapons, says Vedenin. Millions of tons of explosive material rest in our oceans.

The locations of these explosives are insufficiently recorded, in part because of international boundaries, classified military information and the fact that documents are stored in historic archives. They create an detonation and security risk, as well as danger from the ongoing release of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states begin extracting these remains, experts plan to safeguard the habitats that have established nearby. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are presently being removed.

We should replace these metal carcasses originating from munitions with some less dangerous, some non-dangerous materials, like possibly artificial reefs, says Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a model for substituting structures after munitions removal in other locations – because also the most harmful armaments can become framework for new life.