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4d ago

Studies Find Thriving Marine Communities on WWII Munitions and U.S. ‘Ghost Fleet’ Wrecks

Scientists call for replacing toxic war debris with safe hard substrates, with monitoring to begin within weeks.

Examples of the species identified from the ROV videos.
Footage captured by a submersible of starfish on the exposed TNT of an unexploded Nazi bomb at the bottom of the Baltic Sea
Image
Novel, human-influenced habitats form where the wrecks of the “Ghost Fleet” meet. Here, the Alpaco and Buckhorn rest end-to-end.

Overview

  • A Sept. 25 paper in Communications Earth & Environment reports roughly 43,000 organisms per square meter on V‑1 warheads in Germany’s Bay of Lübeck versus about 8,200 per square meter in nearby sediment.
  • Water samples near the dump site contained TNT and RDX from trace levels up to about 2.7 milligrams per liter, concentrations that approach toxicity thresholds for aquatic life.
  • Animals chiefly colonized the metal casings rather than exposed explosive material, though one ROV clip showed more than 40 starfish piled on a chunk of TNT.
  • The authors recommend eventual removal of the munitions with replacement by artificial hard substrates, and they plan time‑lapse and ecological follow‑ups starting next month.
  • A companion Scientific Data study presents a high‑resolution drone map of 147 Mallows Bay shipwrecks to support archaeological and ecological research, as German waters alone hold an estimated 1.6 million tons of dumped munitions.