World War II Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: How Ocean Creatures Flourishes on Discarded Armaments

In the brackish waters off the Germany's shoreline lies a collection of World War II explosives, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off boats at the conclusion of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands weapons have accumulated over the years. They comprise a decaying blanket on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was ignored and neglected. A growing number of visitors came to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Underwater, the weapons decayed.

Some of us thought to see a lifeless zone, with no organisms because it was all contaminated, explains Andrey Vedenin.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the marine environment, the team thought they would find a barren area, with no life because it was all toxic, explains the lead researcher.

What they found astonished them. Vedenin recalls his scientists shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. That moment was a memorable occasion, he recalls.

Thousands of sea creatures had established habitats amid the explosives, creating a renewed marine community more populous than the sea floor surrounding it.

This underwater metropolis was testament to the persistence of marine life. It is actually astonishing how much life we find in areas that are supposed to be hazardous and dangerous, he states.

More than 40 sea stars had gathered on to one visible piece of TNT. They were residing on steel casings, ignition chambers and transport cases just centimetres from its dangerous content. Fish, crabs, anemones and bivalves were all found on the old munitions. It resembles a reef ecosystem in terms of the quantity of creatures that was inhabiting the area, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An mean of more than 40,000 creatures were dwelling on every meter squared of the weapons, experts wrote in their paper on the discovery. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand creatures on every square metre.

It is ironic that items that are designed to kill everything are attracting so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. You can see how nature adjusts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life establishes itself to the most dangerous locations.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Environments

Man-made structures such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, oil rigs and pipelines can provide replacements, compensating for some of the removed marine environment. This investigation reveals that explosives could be similarly beneficial – the bloom of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found elsewhere.

Between the late 1940s and the post-war period, 1.6m tons of arms were disposed of off the Germany's shoreline. Countless of workers transported them in boats; some were dropped in specific sites, others just dumped en route. This is the first time experts have studied how marine life has responded.

Global Instances of Marine Adaptation

• In the United States, retired energy installations have transformed into marine habitats
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become environments for creatures along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These places become even more crucial for marine life as the marine environments are increasingly denuded by fishing, seafloor dredging and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and explosive disposal locations effectively act as refuges – they are not official reserves, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is banned, explains Vedenin. As a result a lot of species that are usually rare or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are flourishing.

Future Considerations

Wherever warfare has taken place in the recent history, adjacent waters are often littered with munitions, says Vedenin. Millions of tonnes of explosive material lie in our marine environments.

The positions of these explosives are poorly mapped, partially because of international boundaries, secret military information and the situation that archives are stored in historical records. They pose an explosion and safety danger, as well as danger from the persistent leakage of toxic chemicals.

As Germany and other countries embark on extracting these artifacts, researchers plan to safeguard the habitats that have established around them. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are presently being cleared.

We should replace these steel remains remaining from weapons with some less dangerous, various non-dangerous materials, like maybe man-made habitats, states Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what occurs in Lübeck sets a precedent for replacing habitats after explosive extraction elsewhere – because also the most harmful weaponry can become framework for ocean ecosystems.