World War II Explosives, Torpedoes and Mines: The Way Marine Life Prosper on Discarded Armaments

In the brackish waters off the Germany's coast rests a collection of World War II explosives, torpedoes and mines. Thrown off boats at the end of the second world war and left behind, numerous explosives have fused into clusters over the years. They create a decaying layer on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western tip of the Baltic.

Over the years, the explosive stockpile was ignored and forgotten about. A increasing amount of visitors traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and entertainment venues. Below the waves, the munitions eroded.

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

When the first scientists went investigating to see what they were affecting to the marine environment, researchers thought they would find a barren area, with no life because it was all poisoned, says Andrey Vedenin.

What they discovered amazed them. Vedenin recalls his colleagues shouting with surprise when the underwater vehicle first sent the images back. This was a great moment, he notes.

Countless of sea creatures had settled among the explosives, creating a renewed ecosystem denser than the seabed around it.

This underwater metropolis was evidence to the tenacity of marine life. It is actually remarkable how much life we observe in places that are considered hazardous and risky, he explains.

More than 40 starfish had clustered on to one exposed fragment of explosive material. They were residing on steel casings, detonator compartments and transport cases just a short distance from its dangerous content. Fish, crustaceans, anemones and mussels were all discovered on the discarded explosives. It's similar to a marine reef in terms of the amount of animal life that was there, states Vedenin.

Remarkable Creature Concentration

An average of more than forty thousand organisms were living on every square metre of the weapons, researchers wrote in their research on the observation. The nearby seabed was much poorer in life, with only eight thousand creatures on every meter squared.

It is surprising that items that are designed to kill everything are drawing so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. You can see how nature adapts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, life returns to the most dangerous areas.

Artificial Features as Ocean Environments

Man-made features such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can provide alternatives, replacing some of the lost marine environment. This study shows that munitions could be equally advantageous – the proliferation of life on those in the Bay of Lübeck is likely to be repeated elsewhere.

Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6 million tonnes of munitions were disposed of off the German coast. Numerous of people placed them in vessels; a portion were deposited in specific locations, others just thrown overboard during transport. This is the initial instance experts have studied how ocean organisms has responded.

Global Examples of Marine Transformation

• In the United States, retired drilling platforms have become reef ecosystems
• Shipwrecks from the World War I have become habitats for creatures along the Potomac River in Maryland
• Tank tracks that have become home to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island

These locations become even more important for organisms as the seas are increasingly depleted by commercial fishing, seafloor dredging and anchoring. Shipwrecks and munitions areas essentially serve as protected areas – they are not national parks, but virtually any kind of human activity is restricted, states Vedenin. Therefore a lot of organisms that are usually rare or decreasing, such as the cod fish, are thriving.

Future Issues

Anywhere warfare has occurred in the recent history, surrounding seas are often containing explosives, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of dangerous substances rest in our marine environments.

The positions of these munitions are inadequately documented, partially because of international boundaries, secret defense data and the reality that archives are stored in old files. They present an explosion and security risk, as well as threat from the continuous release of hazardous substances.

As Germany and other countries start clearing these remains, researchers hope to protect the habitats that have established around them. In the Lübeck Bay weapons are already being removed.

Researchers recommend substitute these steel remains originating from munitions with some less dangerous, some safe structures, like possibly concrete structures, suggests Vedenin.

He presently hopes that what occurs in Lübeck establishes a example for replacing structures after explosive extraction in other locations – because including the most harmful weaponry can become scaffolding for marine organisms.