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

In the brackish sea off the German shoreline sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and naval mines. Thrown off vessels at the conclusion of the second world war and left behind, numerous weapons have fused into clusters over the decades. They create a rusting carpet on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Below the waves, the munitions decayed.

Researchers anticipated to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, states a scientist.

When the team went investigating to see what they were doing to the marine environment, researchers anticipated finding a desert, with no organisms because it was all toxic, explains a scientist.

What they found surprised them. Vedenin recounts his team members reacting with shock when the submersible first transmitted footage. That moment was a remarkable experience, he says.

Numerous of ocean life had made their homes amid the munitions, forming a regenerated habitat denser than the sea floor around it.

This underwater metropolis was evidence to the persistence of life. Indeed surprising how much life we observe in locations that are considered hazardous and dangerous, he says.

More than 40 sea stars had clustered on to one visible piece of explosive material. They were residing on iron containers, fuse pockets and transport cases just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the old munitions. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was there, says Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were residing on every square metre of the munitions, experts wrote in their study on the observation. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that objects that are designed to destroy all life are drawing 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 Marine Habitats

Man-made constructions such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can create alternatives, restoring some of the destroyed habitat. This study shows that weapons could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be duplicated in different areas.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tonnes of munitions were discarded off the Germany's coast. Countless of individuals transported them in vessels; a portion were placed in designated areas, the remainder just thrown overboard while traveling. This is the first time experts have recorded how ocean organisms has responded.

Worldwide Instances of Ocean Transformation

• In the United States, retired oil and gas structures have become coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become homes for marine life along the Potomac in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become environment to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in Guam

These places become even more crucial for organisms as the oceans are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Sunken ships and weapons dump sites effectively function as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of human activity is restricted, says Vedenin. Therefore a many of species that are typically scarce or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Future Considerations

Wherever armed conflict has happened in the last century, surrounding seas are usually containing explosives, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of dangerous substances rest in our seas.

The positions of these weapons are insufficiently documented, partially because of national borders, restricted armed forces records and the reality that archives are hidden in historic archives. They present an detonation and security risk, as well as danger from the continuous emission of toxic chemicals.

As the German government and additional nations begin removing these remains, scientists hope to safeguard the ecosystems that have established around them. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are presently being removed.

We should substitute these steel remains originating from weapons with some less dangerous, some harmless objects, like possibly man-made habitats, says Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a precedent for replacing habitats after munitions removal in other locations – because even the most destructive weaponry can become framework for marine organisms.