World War II Explosives, Torpedoes and Mines: The Way Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Dumped Armaments

In the slightly salty sea off the German coast rests a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and naval mines. Discarded from barges at the conclusion of the World War II and neglected, countless explosives have become matted together over the years. They comprise a decaying layer on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was ignored and neglected. A growing number of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for jetskiing, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Beneath the surface, the munitions decayed.

Researchers thought to see a desert, with no organisms because it was all toxic, states Andrey Vedenin.

When the team went investigating to see what they were doing to the marine environment, researchers anticipated finding a desert, with nothing living there because it was all toxic, says a scientist.

What they found astonished them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues reacting with shock when the submersible first sent the images back. It was a great moment, he says.

Numerous of marine animals had settled on the munitions, creating a regenerated ecosystem richer than the ocean bottom around it.

This ocean community was proof to the tenacity of life. Indeed remarkable how much marine organisms we discover in places that are expected to be dangerous and risky, he explains.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one exposed piece of TNT. They were living on metal shells, ignition chambers and transport cases just a short distance from its dangerous content. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all found on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a marine reef in terms of the abundance of creatures that was present, notes Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 animals were living on every square metre of the weapons, researchers wrote in their research on the finding. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand individuals on every meter squared.

It is paradoxical that items that are designed to eliminate all life are drawing so much life, states Vedenin. You can see how nature adjusts after a major disaster such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life returns to the most risky locations.

Artificial Structures as Marine Environments

Artificial structures such as sunken vessels, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can offer substitutes, replacing some of the lost marine environment. This study demonstrates that weapons could be similarly beneficial – the explosion of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be repeated in other locations.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of munitions were discarded off the Germany's coast. Thousands of workers loaded them in barges; some were placed in specific locations, the remainder just discarded at sea while traveling. This is the first time scientists have recorded how marine life has reacted.

Worldwide Examples of Ocean Adaptation

• In the United States, decommissioned drilling platforms have become reef ecosystems
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become habitats for wildlife along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more valuable for wildlife as the oceans are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Sunken ships and munitions areas effectively function as protected areas – they are not national parks, but nearly any kind of human activity is banned, says Vedenin. Consequently a many of marine species that are typically scarce or declining, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Issues

Anywhere military conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are often containing weapons, says Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of explosive material remain in our oceans.

The sites of these explosives are insufficiently mapped, in part because of national borders, classified military information and the fact that records are stored in historic archives. They create an detonation and security risk, as well as danger from the continuous emission of hazardous substances.

As Germany and additional nations start removing these remains, scientists hope to preserve the ecosystems that have formed around them. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are currently being removed.

Researchers recommend replace these metal carcasses originating from weapons with some safer, some non-dangerous objects, like maybe concrete structures, states Vedenin.

He now aspires that what happens in the Bay of Lübeck creates a model for substituting structures after explosive extraction elsewhere – because including the most harmful armaments can become framework for ocean ecosystems.