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

In the slightly salty sea off the Germany's shoreline sits a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from boats at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands munitions have become matted together over the years. They create a decaying carpet on the low-depth, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the years, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and neglected. A growing number of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Below the waves, the weapons decayed.

Some of us thought to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, says Andrey Vedenin.

When the team went looking to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, the team thought they would find a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all poisoned, states Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin remembers his team members shouting with surprise when the submersible first relayed pictures. This was a remarkable experience, he says.

Thousands of ocean life had settled on the explosives, forming a regenerated habitat more populous than the sea floor surrounding it.

This marine city was testament to the tenacity of life. Truly surprising how much life we discover in places that are supposed to be dangerous and risky, he explains.

Over 40 starfish had gathered on to one exposed fragment of TNT. They were living on steel casings, detonator compartments and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all observed on the historic weapons. It resembles a coral reef in terms of the amount of creatures that was present, notes Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand animals were living on every meter squared of the munitions, experts wrote in their paper on the finding. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that items that are intended to destroy everything are drawing so much life, explains Vedenin. You can see how the natural world evolves after a devastating occurrence such as the second world war and how, in some way, marine life returns to the most dangerous areas.

Man-made Structures as Marine Habitats

Man-made structures such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and pipelines can offer substitutes, restoring some of the lost habitat. This investigation shows that explosives could be equally beneficial – the bloom of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is expected to be repeated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6 million tonnes of arms were discarded off the Germany's shoreline. Numerous of people loaded them in boats; a portion were deposited in designated locations, the remainder just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time scientists have documented how marine life has responded.

Worldwide Instances of Ocean Transformation

• In the US, decommissioned oil and gas structures have turned into reef ecosystems
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become homes for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more valuable for marine life as the oceans are increasingly depleted by fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially act as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, states Vedenin. Therefore a many of marine species that are otherwise rare or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are prospering.

Future Considerations

Anywhere armed conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are usually littered with explosives, says Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of explosive material lie in our marine environments.

The locations of these weapons are inadequately documented, partly because of national borders, classified armed forces records and the fact that records are stored in historical records. They create an detonation and safety danger, as well as risk from the continuous leakage of hazardous substances.

As the German government and other countries begin extracting these relics, scientists aim to safeguard the ecosystems that have formed nearby. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being cleared.

It would be wise to substitute these steel remains left from weapons with certain safer, some harmless objects, like perhaps man-made habitats, states Vedenin.

He now hopes that what happens in Lübeck creates a precedent for substituting material after explosive extraction elsewhere – because even the most destructive explosives can become foundation for new life.