World War II Bombs, Torpedo Heads and Naval Mines: How Ocean Creatures Thrives on Dumped Weapons
In the brackish waters off the German coast lies a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedo heads and mines. Dumped from barges at the end of the World War II and left behind, thousands munitions have fused into clusters over the years. They comprise a corroding blanket on the low-depth, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western part of the Baltic Sea.
Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was overlooked and forgotten about. A growing number of visitors came to the sandy beaches and tranquil sea for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Underwater, the weapons eroded.
Researchers expected to see a desert, with no life because it was all poisoned, states a scientist.
When the team went investigating to see what they were affecting to the ecosystem, some of us thought they would find a desert, with no life because it was all poisoned, says Andrey Vedenin.
What they found astonished them. Vedenin recalls his team members exclaiming in amazement when the submersible first relayed pictures. That moment was a great moment, he says.
Thousands of sea creatures had made their homes amid the explosives, forming a renewed ecosystem more populous than the sea floor surrounding it.
This ocean community was evidence to the persistence of life. Indeed surprising how much marine organisms we observe in areas that are considered hazardous and harmful, he explains.
Over 40 starfish had gathered on to one visible chunk of TNT. They were living on iron containers, ignition chambers and transport cases just a short distance from its dangerous content. Marine fish, crabs, sea anemones and bivalves were all discovered on the discarded explosives. You could compare it with a coral reef in terms of the quantity of animal life that was there, states Vedenin.
Surprising Population Density
An average of more than forty thousand creatures were residing on every meter squared of the weapons, experts wrote in their study on the finding. The nearby seabed was much sparser, with only 8,000 creatures on every meter squared.
It is paradoxical that things that are designed to eliminate everything are hosting so much life, says Vedenin. You can see how the natural world adapts after a catastrophic event such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life returns to the most dangerous locations.
Artificial Features as Marine Habitats
Artificial constructions such as shipwrecks, offshore windfarms, drilling platforms and pipelines can provide substitutes, compensating for some of the destroyed marine environment. This study demonstrates that explosives could be comparably advantageous – the explosion of life on those in the Lübeck Bay is likely to be duplicated in different areas.
Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6 million tons of arms were discarded off the Germany's coast. Numerous of individuals placed them in vessels; some were placed in specific locations, others just thrown overboard while traveling. This is the initial instance scientists have studied how marine life has reacted.
Worldwide Instances of Marine Transformation
- In the US, retired drilling platforms have turned into marine habitats
- Shipwrecks from the first world war have become habitats for marine life along the Potomac in the state of Maryland
- Military vehicle parts that have become habitat to reef-building organisms off Asan in the Pacific island
These areas become even more valuable for marine life as the seas are increasingly denuded by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Shipwrecks and munitions areas practically act as protected areas – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of anthropogenic disturbance is prohibited, says Vedenin. As a result a lot of marine species that are usually uncommon or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.
Coming Factors
Wherever armed conflict has taken place in the past 100 years, adjacent waters are often strewn with munitions, says Vedenin. Many millions of tonnes of dangerous substances rest in our marine environments.
The locations of these munitions are insufficiently documented, partially because of sovereign limits, secret defense data and the situation that archives are stored in historic archives. They create an explosion and security danger, as well as threat from the ongoing emission of poisonous compounds.
As the German government and additional nations embark on removing these relics, scientists hope to safeguard the marine communities that have developed in their vicinity. In the Lübeck Bay munitions are already being cleared.
It would be wise to substitute these iron structures originating from munitions with some safer, some safe objects, like maybe man-made habitats, says Vedenin.
He currently hopes that what occurs in Lübeck sets a precedent for substituting material after weapon clearance in different areas – because including the most harmful explosives can become framework for marine organisms.