Nazi Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Prosper on Dumped Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the German shoreline sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and mines. Dumped from boats at the end of the second world war and left behind, numerous weapons have fused into clusters over the years. They comprise a rusting carpet on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was ignored and neglected. A growing number of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions decayed.

Researchers expected to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, states Andrey Vedenin.

When the team went investigating to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team anticipated finding a barren area, with no organisms because it was all toxic, explains the lead researcher.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin remembers his team members exclaiming in amazement when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. This was a great moment, he notes.

Countless of marine animals had made their homes among the munitions, forming a regenerated habitat denser than the ocean bottom around it.

This ocean community was evidence to the persistence of life. Indeed astonishing how much life we observe in locations that are supposed to be hazardous and dangerous, he explains.

More than 40 sea stars had clustered on to one accessible chunk of TNT. They were living on iron containers, detonator compartments and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and mussels were all found on the discarded explosives. It's similar to a marine reef in terms of the quantity of creatures that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were residing on every meter squared of the weapons, experts documented in their paper on the finding. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only 8,000 individuals on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that items that are intended to destroy all life are hosting so much life, explains Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world adapts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most hazardous locations.

Artificial Features as Ocean Environments

Man-made constructions such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can offer alternatives, replacing some of the lost habitat. This research shows that weapons could be comparably positive – the explosion of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is probable to be repeated in different areas.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tons of weapons were disposed of off the German coast. Countless of people loaded them in barges; a portion were deposited in designated areas, others just discarded at sea during transport. This is the initial instance experts have documented how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Instances of Marine Adaptation

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

These places become even more valuable for organisms as the seas are increasingly stripped by fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Shipwrecks and explosive disposal locations effectively function as refuges – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of human activity is restricted, says Vedenin. Consequently a many of organisms that are usually uncommon or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Considerations

Anywhere armed conflict has taken place in the recent history, surrounding seas are usually strewn with munitions, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of explosive material remain in our oceans.

The positions of these explosives are insufficiently documented, partially because of national borders, restricted armed forces records and the situation that archives are hidden in old files. They create an detonation and security hazard, as well as risk from the continuous emission of toxic chemicals.

As the German government and other countries begin extracting these relics, researchers plan to protect the marine communities that have developed around them. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are currently being removed.

Researchers recommend substitute these steel remains left from weapons with some safer, some safe objects, like maybe artificial reefs, states Vedenin.

He currently hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a example for substituting structures after explosive extraction elsewhere – because also the most harmful armaments can become framework for marine organisms.