Nazi Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Thrives on Discarded Armaments

In the slightly salty sea off the German coast sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the end of the World War II and forgotten about, countless munitions have fused into clusters over the decades. They form a rusting carpet on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions eroded.

Researchers thought to see a barren area, with no life because it was all contaminated, explains a scientist.

When the initial researchers went investigating to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, some of us expected to see a desert, with no life because it was all poisoned, says a scientist.

What they discovered surprised them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues shouting with surprise when the submersible first relayed pictures. This was a remarkable experience, he recalls.

Countless of sea creatures had established habitats among the explosives, forming a renewed marine community richer than the sea floor surrounding it.

This ocean community was proof to the resilience of life. It is actually astonishing how much marine organisms we observe in places that are expected to be dangerous and harmful, he explains.

In excess of 40 sea stars had piled on to one exposed fragment of TNT. They were living on iron containers, fuse pockets and carrying containers just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and mussels were all discovered on the historic weapons. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of creatures that was inhabiting the area, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every meter squared of the explosives, scientists documented in their research on the observation. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is ironic that things that are designed to kill everything are attracting so much marine organisms, says Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adjusts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life establishes itself to the most hazardous places.

Artificial Features as Marine Environments

Artificial features such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can create alternatives, compensating for some of the destroyed habitat. This research reveals that explosives could be equally positive – the proliferation of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is expected to be repeated in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6 million tonnes of munitions were discarded off the German coast. Thousands of people loaded them in boats; a portion were deposited in allocated locations, the remainder just thrown overboard during transport. This is the first time researchers have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.

Worldwide Instances of Ocean Transformation

• In the US, decommissioned oil and gas structures have transformed into marine habitats
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become homes for marine life 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 important for marine life as the seas are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Shipwrecks and munitions areas effectively act as sanctuaries – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of human activity is banned, states Vedenin. Consequently a many of organisms that are otherwise scarce or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are prospering.

Coming Factors

Wherever military conflict has occurred in the past 100 years, nearby oceans are usually strewn with explosives, explains Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of volatile compounds remain in our seas.

The sites of these explosives are inadequately recorded, partly because of sovereign limits, classified defense data and the situation that archives are hidden in historic archives. They present an detonation and security risk, as well as danger from the ongoing release of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and additional nations embark on extracting these relics, scientists hope to preserve the marine communities that have developed in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being cleared.

It would be wise to substitute these metal carcasses originating from munitions with certain less dangerous, various harmless structures, like possibly man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He now wishes that what occurs in the Bay of Lübeck establishes a precedent for replacing material after explosive extraction in other locations – because even the most destructive armaments can become scaffolding for marine organisms.