World War II Munitions, Torpedoes and Mines: The Way Marine Life Flourishes on Discarded Weapons

In the brackish sea off the Germany's shoreline sits a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and naval mines. Dumped from boats at the conclusion of the World War II and forgotten about, numerous munitions have become matted together over the years. They form a decaying blanket on the low-depth, silty ocean floor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the years, the wartime weapons was overlooked and forgotten about. A increasing amount of tourists traveled to the coastal areas and calm waters for water sports, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.

We initially thought to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, explains the lead researcher.

When the team went looking to see what they were doing to the marine environment, the team anticipated finding a desert, with no life because it was all contaminated, states a scientist.

What they found amazed them. Vedenin remembers his colleagues shouting with surprise when the submersible first sent the images back. It was a great moment, he recalls.

Thousands of ocean life had made their homes amid the weapons, forming a renewed ecosystem more populous than the seabed around it.

This marine city was evidence to the persistence of life. Indeed astonishing how much marine organisms we discover in areas that are expected to be toxic and risky, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had clustered on to one accessible chunk of explosive material. They were dwelling on iron containers, detonator compartments and transport cases just centimetres from its explosive filling. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all found on the historic weapons. It resembles a coral reef in terms of the amount of fauna that was there, notes Vedenin.

Unexpected Creature Concentration

An average of more than 40,000 creatures were dwelling on every meter squared of the weapons, researchers documented in their study on the observation. The adjacent region was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that things that are intended to kill everything are attracting so much marine organisms, states Vedenin. You can see how nature adjusts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in some way, marine life establishes itself to the most risky places.

Artificial Features as Marine Environments

Man-made features such as shipwrecks, wind turbines, drilling platforms and undersea pipes can offer substitutes, restoring some of the lost marine environment. This research shows that munitions could be equally advantageous – the bloom of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be duplicated elsewhere.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tonnes of weapons were disposed of off the Germany's shoreline. Thousands of workers transported them in vessels; a portion were deposited in designated locations, the remainder just thrown overboard during transport. This is the first time researchers have recorded how marine life has responded.

Global Instances of Ocean Adaptation

• In the US, decommissioned drilling platforms have become reef ecosystems
• Sunken ships from the World War I have become habitats for wildlife along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become environment to coral off Asan in Guam

These areas become even more important for wildlife as the seas are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and weapons dump sites practically serve as refuges – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is restricted, says Vedenin. As a result a lot of marine species that are otherwise rare or diminishing, such as the cod fish, are prospering.

Future Factors

Wherever warfare has happened in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are typically containing explosives, states Vedenin. Many millions of tons of volatile compounds lie in our marine environments.

The positions of these munitions are poorly recorded, in part because of sovereign limits, secret military information and the situation that documents are buried in old files. They create an explosion and safety risk, as well as danger from the continuous release of poisonous compounds.

As Germany and additional nations start removing these artifacts, scientists aim to preserve the habitats that have developed around them. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are currently being removed.

Researchers recommend substitute these iron structures originating from munitions with some more secure, some harmless objects, like maybe artificial reefs, suggests Vedenin.

He presently aspires that what occurs in the Bay of Lübeck sets a precedent for substituting habitats after weapon clearance elsewhere – because also the most destructive armaments can become framework for new life.