In the slightly salty waters off the Germany's shoreline rests a wasteland of World War II explosives, torpedoes and mines. Discarded from vessels at the conclusion of the second world war and left behind, countless explosives have fused into clusters over the decades. They comprise a decaying blanket on the shallow, silty seafloor of the Lübeck Bay in the western part of the Baltic.
Over the decades, the explosive stockpile was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists traveled to the sandy beaches and calm waters for water sports, kiteboarding and amusement parks. Below the waves, the munitions eroded.
Some of us anticipated to see a desert, with nothing living there because it was all poisoned, explains Andrey Vedenin.
When the team went searching to see what they were doing to the marine environment, the team anticipated finding a barren area, with no organisms because it was all poisoned, says Andrey Vedenin.
What they discovered amazed them. Vedenin remembers his scientists shouting with surprise when the ROV first transmitted footage. It was a great moment, he recalls.
Thousands of sea creatures had established habitats amid the explosives, creating a revitalized marine community richer than the sea floor around it.
This ocean community was evidence to the tenacity of life. It is actually remarkable how much marine organisms we observe in areas that are expected to be dangerous and risky, he explains.
More than 40 sea stars had gathered on to one accessible fragment of explosive material. They were residing on iron containers, ignition chambers and transport cases just a short distance from its explosive filling. Marine fish, crabs, anemones and mussels were all observed on the discarded explosives. It's similar to a marine reef in terms of the amount of creatures that was there, states Vedenin.
An average of more than 40,000 organisms were residing on every meter squared of the weapons, experts reported in their paper on the finding. The nearby seabed was much poorer in life, with only 8,000 individuals on every meter squared.
It is paradoxical that items that are intended to eliminate everything are hosting so much marine organisms, explains Vedenin. It's evident how the natural world adapts after a devastating occurrence such as the World War II and how, in certain respects, marine life finds its way to the most risky areas.
Man-made structures such as sunken vessels, offshore windfarms, oil rigs and pipelines can provide replacements, replacing some of the lost marine environment. This investigation shows that weapons could be comparably positive – the proliferation of marine organisms on those in the Lübeck Bay is expected to be found in different areas.
Between the late 1940s and 1948, 1.6 million tons of weapons were dumped off the Germany's shoreline. Thousands of people transported them in boats; a portion were placed in designated areas, others just discarded at sea while traveling. This is the initial instance experts have recorded how ocean organisms has reacted.
These locations become even more valuable for organisms as the seas are increasingly denuded by fishing, bottom trawling and boat mooring. Sunken ships and explosive disposal locations essentially act as protected areas – they are not national parks, but almost any kind of human activity is restricted, states Vedenin. Therefore a numerous of organisms that are usually scarce or diminishing, such as the Baltic cod, are flourishing.
Anywhere military conflict has happened in the last century, adjacent waters are often strewn with weapons, says Vedenin. Many millions of tons of volatile compounds remain in our seas.
The positions of these weapons are insufficiently documented, partially because of sovereign limits, secret military information and the reality that archives are hidden in historic archives. They create an detonation and safety hazard, as well as danger from the ongoing leakage of hazardous substances.
As Germany and different states start extracting these remains, scientists plan to preserve the habitats that have developed in their vicinity. In the Bay of Lübeck munitions are already being removed.
Researchers recommend substitute these metal carcasses originating from weapons with some safer, various harmless structures, like possibly artificial reefs, suggests Vedenin.
He presently hopes that what occurs in Lübeck establishes a model for substituting structures after explosive extraction elsewhere – because also the most destructive armaments can become foundation for new life.
