World War I shipwrecks in the Potomac River in Maryland. Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab
Marine life is thriving on unexploded bombs and sunken ships left over from the world wars, according to two new studies.
The first study looked at a dump site for World War II bombs in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of northern Germany. Researchers found that crabs, starfish, and other sea creatures were drawn to the hard exteriors of discarded V-1 flying bombs, German cruise missiles used in the Battle of Britain.
Starfish on a bomb fragment in the Baltic Sea. Andrey Vedenin et al. / Communications Earth & Environment
Barnacles, anemones, sea squirts, and other creatures are better able to take hold on hard surfaces, so the bombs offered a more suitable home than sandy areas nearby. As these creatures took root, larger fish, such as cod and flounder, followed. Even though the bombs leaked toxic compounds, such as TNT, they were still far more abundant with life than the other parts of the seafloor, according to the study, published in Communications Earth & Environment.
The second study looked at 147 shipwrecks in a bay near the mouth of the Potomac River in Maryland. The ships, built for World War I and deliberately sunk in the late 1920s, have been found to host an array of wildlife, from ospreys to Atlantic sturgeon. Some ships are only partially submerged, and their remains have created shallows, wetlands, and forests in the brackish waters of the lower Potomac.
The study, published in Scientific Data, mapped every ship in the so-called “Ghost Fleet” to aid future research on Mallows Bay. The wreckage, the study notes, has become an “integral part of the ecology at Mallows Bay.”
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