Nazi Bombs, Torpedoes and Mines: How Ocean Creatures Thrives on Dumped Weapons

In the brackish sea off the Germany's shoreline sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Thrown off barges at the conclusion of the World War II and forgotten about, countless munitions have become matted together over the decades. They form a corroding carpet on the low-depth, silty seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was ignored and neglected. A growing number of visitors flocked to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.

Researchers expected to see a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all toxic, explains the lead researcher.

When the initial researchers went investigating to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, the team anticipated finding a desert, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, says the lead researcher.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin remembers his team members reacting with shock when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. It was a remarkable experience, he recalls.

Thousands of ocean life had made their homes among the munitions, developing a renewed ecosystem denser than the sea floor surrounding it.

This ocean community was testament to the persistence of marine life. Truly surprising how much life we observe in places that are supposed to be hazardous and harmful, he says.

In excess of 40 sea stars had piled on to one exposed fragment of explosive material. They were residing on iron containers, detonator compartments and storage boxes just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the discarded explosives. It's similar to a coral reef in terms of the amount of animal life that was there, states Vedenin.

Surprising Population Density

An mean of more than forty thousand animals were residing on every meter squared of the weapons, experts wrote in their paper on the observation. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only 8,000 organisms on every square metre.

It is ironic that objects that are designed to destroy all life are attracting so much life, says Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life establishes itself to the most risky areas.

Artificial Features as Marine Environments

Man-made features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can create substitutes, replacing some of the lost habitat. This research demonstrates that explosives could be comparably positive – the bloom of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be duplicated elsewhere.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of arms were discarded off the German coast. Thousands of workers transported them in vessels; a portion were placed in allocated locations, others just dumped while traveling. This is the initial instance experts have studied how ocean organisms has reacted.

Worldwide Instances of Marine Adaptation

• In the United States, decommissioned energy installations have transformed into marine habitats
• Shipwrecks from the first world war have become homes for marine life along the Potomac River in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in Guam

These places become even more important for organisms as the seas are increasingly stripped by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations effectively serve as sanctuaries – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is banned, explains Vedenin. As a result a lot of marine species that are otherwise rare or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Issues

Anywhere warfare has happened in the recent history, surrounding seas are usually containing explosives, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of explosive material rest in our seas.

The locations of these munitions are inadequately mapped, partly because of national borders, restricted defense data and the situation that records are stored in historic archives. They pose an explosion and security danger, as well as danger from the continuous leakage of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and other countries start extracting these remains, experts aim to protect the marine communities that have developed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are already being extracted.

We should replace these metal carcasses remaining from weapons with certain safer, various harmless objects, like maybe concrete structures, says Vedenin.

He now hopes that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck sets a example for replacing material after munitions removal elsewhere – because even the most destructive armaments can become scaffolding for ocean ecosystems.