World War II Munitions, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Dumped Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the Germany's shoreline rests a graveyard of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Dumped from vessels at the end of the second world war and neglected, numerous explosives have fused into clusters over the years. They comprise a decaying carpet on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists came to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the munitions eroded.

We initially expected to see a desert, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, states a scientist.

When the initial researchers went looking to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, some of us anticipated finding a desert, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, states Andrey Vedenin.

What they found astonished them. Vedenin recounts his team members exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first relayed pictures. That moment was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Countless of marine animals had made their homes amid the munitions, creating a renewed habitat more populous than the sea floor around it.

This ocean community was proof to the tenacity of marine life. It is actually astonishing how much life we discover in locations that are supposed to be toxic and harmful, he explains.

More than 40 sea stars had clustered on to one visible fragment of TNT. They were living on steel casings, ignition chambers and transport cases just a short distance from its dangerous content. Marine fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the historic weapons. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the quantity of fauna that was present, notes Vedenin.

Remarkable Population Density

An average of more than 40,000 animals were residing on every meter squared of the explosives, scientists documented in their paper on the observation. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is surprising that objects that are designed to destroy everything are hosting so much life, says Vedenin. It's evident 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.

Artificial Structures as Marine Environments

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can create substitutes, compensating for some of the removed marine environment. This investigation demonstrates that weapons could be equally positive – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is probable to be duplicated in other locations.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tonnes of munitions were disposed of off the Germany's coast. Thousands of workers loaded them in barges; a portion were deposited in specific locations, others just dumped while traveling. This is the first time experts have recorded how marine life has reacted.

Worldwide Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the US, decommissioned oil and gas structures have become coral reefs
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become homes for creatures along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become environment to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for wildlife as the oceans are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites practically act as sanctuaries – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, explains Vedenin. Therefore a many of organisms that are otherwise uncommon or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Future Factors

Wherever warfare has taken place in the recent history, surrounding seas are usually strewn with explosives, says Vedenin. Millions of tons of volatile compounds rest in our seas.

The locations of these munitions are poorly recorded, in part because of national borders, restricted defense data and the reality that archives are buried in historic archives. They present an detonation and security danger, as well as risk from the persistent emission of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states start clearing these relics, researchers plan to protect the marine communities that have formed in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are presently being extracted.

We should replace these iron structures originating from weapons with certain safer, some harmless objects, like maybe man-made habitats, states Vedenin.

He presently wishes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a example for replacing material after weapon clearance in different areas – because also the most destructive armaments can become framework for marine organisms.