Dumped munitions and sunken ships from the World Wars have unexpectedly become a sanctuary for marine life: studies have shown that sites containing these military artifacts host several times more organisms than the surrounding seabed.
The remnants of military conflicts—munitions dumped at sea and sunken ships—have unexpectedly transformed into the foundation for thriving underwater ecosystems. This is evidenced by the results of two new studies published in the journals Communications Earth & Environment and Scientific Data.
In the Baltic Sea, scientists investigated a World War II munitions dump, where they found up to 43,000 marine organisms per square meter—five times more than in the surrounding sediment. Despite the toxicity, the metal shells of V-1 rockets provided a hard surface for colonization by mollusks and other species.
Concurrently, in the US, researchers studied the so-called “Ghost Fleet”—147 sunken ships in Mallows Bay on the Potomac River. These hulls, burned and sunk back in the 1920s, have gradually turned into a unique form of “artificial reef,” inhabited by ospreys, Atlantic sturgeon, and other flora and fauna.
Scientists emphasize that while such objects promote the development of marine life, they remain a source of potential danger due to toxic substances. For the long-term preservation of these ecosystems, specialists suggest considering the possibility of removing the munitions and replacing them with safer artificial substrates.
