World War II Bombs, Torpedoes and Mines: How Marine Life Thrives on Dumped Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the Germany's coast rests a graveyard of World War II explosives, torpedoes and mines. Dumped from vessels at the conclusion of the World War II and left behind, numerous munitions have accumulated over the decades. They create a rusting carpet on the low-depth, muddy ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and neglected. A increasing amount of tourists came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the munitions decayed.

Some of us expected to see a lifeless zone, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, explains a scientist.

When the first scientists went looking to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, researchers expected to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all toxic, says Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered surprised them. Vedenin recalls his team members exclaiming in amazement when the ROV first relayed pictures. This was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Thousands of sea creatures had established habitats among the munitions, creating a revitalized habitat richer than the seabed nearby.

This marine city was testament to the persistence of marine life. Truly surprising how much life we find in areas that are considered hazardous and harmful, he says.

More than 40 sea stars had clustered on to one exposed piece of explosive material. They were residing on steel casings, detonator compartments and carrying containers just centimetres from its explosive filling. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all observed on the discarded explosives. It resembles a reef ecosystem in terms of the abundance of creatures that was there, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand organisms were living on every meter squared of the explosives, experts reported in their research on the observation. The surrounding area was much sparser, with only eight thousand individuals on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that items that are designed to destroy all life are hosting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world adapts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in certain respects, marine life finds its way to the most risky areas.

Artificial Features as Marine Environments

Artificial features such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can offer replacements, replacing some of the destroyed habitat. This study reveals that explosives could be equally positive – the bloom of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is expected to be repeated in different areas.

Between 1946 and the post-war period, 1.6m tonnes of arms were disposed of off the Germany's coast. Numerous of people loaded them in vessels; some were dropped in specific areas, the remainder just discarded at sea during transport. This is the initial instance experts have studied how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the US, retired energy installations have turned into marine habitats
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become environments for marine life along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more valuable for organisms as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially function as refuges – they are not official reserves, but nearly any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, says Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of species that are usually rare or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are thriving.

Future Factors

Anywhere armed conflict has taken place in the last century, surrounding seas are typically littered with munitions, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of dangerous substances remain in our oceans.

The positions of these explosives are insufficiently recorded, partly because of sovereign limits, restricted military information and the situation that documents are stored in old files. They pose an explosion and safety risk, as well as risk from the continuous leakage of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and additional nations begin removing these relics, researchers hope to safeguard the habitats that have formed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are presently being extracted.

We should replace these metal carcasses originating from munitions with some safer, various non-dangerous materials, like maybe artificial reefs, states Vedenin.

He currently aspires that what transpires in Lübeck creates a model for replacing structures after explosive extraction in other locations – because even the most harmful armaments can become framework for marine organisms.