Nazi Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: How Ocean Creatures Prosper on Abandoned Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the German shoreline sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the end of the second world war and left behind, thousands munitions have fused into clusters over the years. They create a corroding layer on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was ignored and neglected. A growing number of visitors traveled to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons decayed.

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

When the team went investigating to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, researchers expected to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, says Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin remembers his colleagues shouting with surprise when the submersible first sent the images back. This was a great moment, he notes.

Countless of ocean life had made their homes among the explosives, creating a renewed habitat richer than the ocean bottom nearby.

This underwater metropolis was proof to the persistence of life. Indeed surprising how much life we discover in locations that are supposed to be hazardous and dangerous, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had gathered on to one accessible fragment of TNT. They were living on metal shells, fuse pockets and carrying containers just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all discovered on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of fauna that was there, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were living on every square metre of the weapons, experts wrote in their study on the observation. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every meter squared.

It is ironic that items that are intended to eliminate all life are attracting so much life, states Vedenin. It's evident how nature adapts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life finds its way to the most dangerous areas.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Habitats

Man-made features such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and pipelines can create substitutes, compensating for some of the destroyed habitat. This research shows that explosives could be equally beneficial – the explosion of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be duplicated in other locations.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of weapons were disposed of off the Germany's shoreline. Thousands of workers transported them in boats; some were deposited in specific areas, the remainder just dumped during transport. This is the first time scientists have recorded how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Instances of Ocean Adaptation

• In the US, decommissioned drilling platforms have turned into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become homes for marine life along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These areas become even more valuable for organisms as the oceans are increasingly stripped by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations essentially act as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, explains Vedenin. Consequently a lot of species that are typically scarce or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Future Issues

Wherever armed conflict has taken place in the recent history, nearby oceans are typically containing explosives, states Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds rest in our seas.

The locations of these weapons are poorly recorded, in part because of international boundaries, classified military information and the situation that documents are hidden in old files. They create an explosion and safety risk, as well as risk from the ongoing release of hazardous substances.

As Germany and additional nations embark on extracting these artifacts, researchers aim to safeguard the marine communities that have formed around them. In the Bay of Lübeck explosives are presently being extracted.

Researchers recommend replace these steel remains left from munitions with some safer, various harmless structures, like maybe artificial reefs, suggests Vedenin.

He currently hopes that what happens in Lübeck creates a model for replacing structures after munitions removal elsewhere – because also the most destructive explosives can become scaffolding for marine organisms.