Nazi Explosives, Torpedoes and Naval Mines: How Ocean Creatures Thrives on Abandoned Armaments

In the brackish waters off the Germany's coast sits a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and naval mines. Dumped from vessels at the conclusion of the World War II and forgotten about, thousands munitions have fused into clusters over the years. They create a rusting layer on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and neglected. A increasing amount of visitors traveled to the coastal areas and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Underwater, the weapons deteriorated.

Researchers anticipated to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, states a scientist.

When the initial researchers went searching to see what they were doing to the ecosystem, the team thought they would find a desert, with no life because it was all toxic, explains Andrey Vedenin.

What they found surprised them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues exclaiming in amazement when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. That moment was a great moment, he recalls.

Countless of marine animals had settled amid the explosives, forming a renewed ecosystem more populous than the ocean bottom surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was proof to the tenacity of life. Truly surprising how much marine organisms we observe in areas that are considered toxic and dangerous, he says.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one exposed fragment of TNT. They were living on metal shells, ignition chambers and carrying containers just a short distance from its explosive filling. Fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the old munitions. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the abundance of animal life that was there, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Population Density

An average of more than forty thousand creatures were living on every square metre of the weapons, scientists reported in their research on the discovery. The adjacent region was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand creatures on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that objects that are designed to destroy all life are hosting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. One can observe how the natural world evolves after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life returns to the most dangerous places.

Artificial Structures as Ocean Environments

Artificial constructions such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can offer replacements, compensating for some of the removed marine environment. This research reveals that explosives could be comparably beneficial – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found in different areas.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tons of weapons were dumped off the Germany's coast. Thousands of workers placed them in boats; a portion were dropped in allocated locations, others just thrown overboard en route. This is the first time experts have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.

Global Examples of Ocean Adaptation

• In the United States, decommissioned energy installations have transformed into reef ecosystems
• Submerged vessels from the World War I have become homes for marine life along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to coral off Asan beach in the Pacific island

These places become even more important for organisms as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites essentially act as refuges – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, states Vedenin. As a result a many of marine species that are usually uncommon or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Future Factors

Wherever military conflict has occurred in the past 100 years, surrounding seas are typically containing munitions, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tons of explosive material remain in our seas.

The positions of these weapons are insufficiently recorded, partly because of international boundaries, classified military information and the fact that archives are buried in historical records. They pose an explosion and security hazard, as well as risk from the continuous release of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and different states start extracting these artifacts, experts hope to safeguard the marine communities that have formed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are presently being extracted.

It would be wise to substitute these metal carcasses originating from weapons with some less dangerous, various safe structures, like possibly artificial reefs, says Vedenin.

He currently hopes that what happens in Lübeck sets a example for replacing structures after explosive extraction in other locations – because including the most damaging armaments can become framework for ocean ecosystems.