World War II Bombs, Torpedoes and Mines: The Way Marine Life Thrives on Discarded Armaments

In the slightly salty waters off the Germany's coast rests a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and mines. Dumped from barges at the end of the World War II and forgotten about, thousands weapons have fused into clusters over the decades. They create a corroding carpet on the shallow, silty ocean floor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the wartime weapons was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors flocked to the coastal areas and calm waters for jetskiing, kiteboarding and entertainment venues. Beneath the surface, the weapons deteriorated.

Some of us thought to see a barren area, with nothing living there because it was all contaminated, explains Andrey Vedenin.

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

What they found surprised them. Vedenin recalls his team members shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first relayed pictures. This was a great moment, he recalls.

Countless of marine animals had established habitats amid the explosives, creating a revitalized marine community richer than the seabed nearby.

This marine city was proof to the persistence of marine life. Truly remarkable how much life we discover in places that are considered hazardous and harmful, he states.

Over 40 sea stars had piled on to one accessible fragment of explosive material. They were living on iron containers, ignition chambers and storage boxes just centimetres from its volatile core. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and bivalves were all found on the old munitions. It resembles a marine reef in terms of the quantity of creatures that was inhabiting the area, says Vedenin.

Surprising Creature Concentration

An mean of more than forty thousand organisms were residing on every meter squared of the munitions, researchers wrote in their study on the discovery. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only eight thousand organisms on every square metre.

It is paradoxical that items that are meant to eliminate all life are attracting so much life, says Vedenin. You can see how nature adapts after a catastrophic event such as the second world war and how, in some way, marine life finds its way to the most risky places.

Man-made Structures as Ocean Environments

Artificial structures such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and pipelines can provide replacements, replacing some of the lost habitat. This research demonstrates that munitions could be comparably advantageous – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be duplicated in different areas.

Between 1946 and 1948, 1.6m tons of munitions were disposed of off the Germany's shoreline. Countless of workers placed them in barges; some were deposited in designated locations, others just discarded at sea while traveling. This is the initial instance researchers have recorded how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the US, retired oil and gas structures have transformed into coral reefs
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become environments for wildlife along the Potomac River in the state of Maryland
• Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to coral off Asan in the Pacific island

These areas become even more important for marine life as the seas are increasingly depleted by fishing, bottom trawling and anchoring. Shipwrecks and munitions areas effectively function as refuges – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of human activity is restricted, states Vedenin. Consequently a numerous of marine species that are typically rare or decreasing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.

Future Factors

Wherever military conflict has happened in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are usually littered with munitions, explains Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of volatile compounds remain in our oceans.

The locations of these munitions are poorly mapped, partly because of international boundaries, secret military information and the reality that archives are hidden in old files. They create an detonation and security danger, as well as risk from the continuous leakage of hazardous substances.

As Germany and additional nations embark on removing these relics, researchers plan to protect the ecosystems that have developed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay explosives are currently being extracted.

We should replace these steel remains remaining from weapons with certain safer, various safe objects, like maybe concrete structures, states Vedenin.

He now wishes that what occurs in Lübeck sets a model for substituting material after weapon clearance in different areas – because also the most harmful explosives can become framework for new life.