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6h ago

New Studies Find Baltic V‑1 Warheads and U.S. ‘Ghost Fleet’ Teeming With Marine Life

Peer-reviewed studies report wartime debris acting as scarce hard habitat despite detectable explosive contamination.

Image
Novel, human-influenced habitats form where the wrecks of the “Ghost Fleet” meet. Here, the Alpaco and Buckhorn rest end-to-end.
Along the Potomac River in Maryland, more than 100 abandoned World War I steamships make up the Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay
© Andrey Vedenin et al./Communications Earth & Environment

Overview

  • An ROV survey in Germany’s Lübeck Bay found about 43,000 organisms per square meter on V‑1 warhead casings versus roughly 8,200 in surrounding sediment.
  • Water samples near the munitions contained TNT and RDX from tens of nanograms per liter up to about 2.7 milligrams per liter, levels the authors estimate could be fatally toxic.
  • Most animals clustered on metal casings rather than exposed explosives, and the researchers recommend removing the munitions and installing non‑toxic hard substrates to retain habitat.
  • A companion study released a high‑resolution photographic map of all 147 shipwrecks in Maryland’s Mallows Bay, documenting the Ghost Fleet as a vibrant refuge for wildlife.
  • The team plans follow‑up monitoring, including a time‑lapse camera at the Baltic site, while German waters are estimated to hold about 1.6 million tons of dumped weapons.