Nazi Munitions, Torpedoes and Mines: How Marine Life Flourishes on Abandoned Weapons

In the slightly salty sea off the Germany's coast sits a collection of Nazi bombs, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the World War II and left behind, thousands weapons have accumulated over the decades. They form a corroding layer on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.

Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was ignored and neglected. A growing number of tourists flocked to the coastal areas and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Below the waves, the munitions eroded.

Researchers thought to see a barren area, with no organisms because it was all toxic, says a scientist.

When the team went investigating to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, researchers expected to see a lifeless zone, with no life because it was all contaminated, says Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered astonished them. Vedenin recounts his colleagues shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first transmitted footage. It was a remarkable experience, he says.

Countless of ocean life had settled on the weapons, forming a revitalized ecosystem more populous than the sea floor surrounding it.

This ocean community was evidence to the tenacity of life. It is actually surprising how much life we observe in locations that are expected to be toxic and harmful, he says.

More than 40 starfish had clustered on to one visible piece of explosive material. They were residing on metal shells, fuse pockets and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Marine fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the old munitions. It's similar to a marine reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand organisms were living on every square metre of the explosives, scientists wrote in their paper on the finding. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only 8,000 creatures on every meter squared.

It is ironic that things that are designed to kill everything are drawing so much life, states 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 establishes itself to the most hazardous places.

Man-made Structures as Marine Environments

Artificial constructions such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can offer substitutes, replacing some of the destroyed marine environment. This study shows that munitions could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be found in different areas.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6m tons of arms were discarded off the German shoreline. Numerous of workers loaded them in vessels; a portion were deposited in allocated areas, others just dumped while traveling. This is the initial instance scientists have studied how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Instances of Marine Transformation

• In the US, decommissioned energy installations have turned into coral reefs
• Submerged vessels from the first world war have become habitats for creatures along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become home to coral off Asan beach in Guam

These places become even more crucial for marine life as the oceans are increasingly depleted by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations effectively function as protected areas – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is banned, states Vedenin. As a result a lot of marine species that are otherwise scarce or declining, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Factors

Anywhere armed conflict has taken place in the recent history, adjacent waters are often strewn with weapons, explains Vedenin. Millions of tons of dangerous substances rest in our oceans.

The locations of these munitions are inadequately recorded, partly because of national borders, classified armed forces records and the reality that archives are buried in historical records. They pose an detonation and security danger, as well as danger from the continuous emission of poisonous compounds.

As the German government and other countries embark on removing these remains, researchers hope to safeguard the habitats that have formed in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck weapons are already being removed.

It would be wise to substitute these steel remains left from weapons with some more secure, some safe objects, like possibly man-made habitats, suggests Vedenin.

He currently wishes that what transpires in the Bay of Lübeck sets a precedent for substituting habitats after munitions removal in different areas – because including the most damaging weaponry can become scaffolding for marine organisms.