Studying the Environmental Impact of WWI Shipwrecks on the North Sea: A Project to Investigate Chemical Hazards that Wreaks across the Norwegian Ocean

According to the study, the wrecks from the world wars contain between 2.5 million and 20.4 million metric tons of products.

“The general public is often quite interested in shipwrecks because of their historical value, but the potential environmental impact of these wrecks is often overlooked,” said study author Josefien Van Landuyt, a doctoral candidate, bioengineer and microbiologist at Ghent University in Belgium.

The researchers made the point that more wrecks need to be collected in order to have a better idea of their impact on the North Sea. Van Landuyt was surprised by just how many wrecks, including those that are almost intact, can be found there.

The British Royal Air Force were patrolling the Belgian coastline when they attacked the ship. Two aerial bombs struck the ship, causing it to sink rapidly. The strike claimed the lives of 11 sailors and carried the ship’s cargo — munitions and coal reserves — to the bottom of the sea.

A group of researchers began looking at the impact of the wreck as part of the project. The goal of the project is to investigate wrecks located across the North Sea seabed, according to Van Landuyt. The North Sea borders Belgium, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany — all of which were involved in WWII.

She hopes the data collected by the project will help policy makers decide the best steps in dealing with the North Sea’s wrecks and protecting its ecosystem.

“The research performed within this project will be used to develop a decision-making tool to asses the potential environmental risk a war time shipwreck poses on the environment, which will hopefully contribute to a safe and healthier marine environment.”

Heavy metals such as nickel and copper were found in the samples. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are chemicals that naturally occur in gasoline, coal and crude oil, were also found.

The team uncovered the highest concentration of metals closest to the ship’s coal bunker, but it was also present in sediment that was deposited in the wake of the wreck. The samples with the most concentrated chemicals are close to the ship.

These explosives, as well as other chemical warfare agents, can be toxic to marine life. The study found that marine organisms are impacted by the growth, reproduction, feeding and tissues of petroleum products.

She said that it is difficult and expensive to attempt reclamation techniques such as removing the bombs by divers. It’s possible to focus resources with the decision-support tool.

A Viking ship in Lake Mjsa, Northern Norway, circa 1300-1800s, discovered by a sound-based mapping system

The vessel has unique stem posts that reveal a moment in the lake’s maritime history and is estimated to have been around between the 1300s and 1800s.

The area below the water’s surface has been mapped out using a system that uses sound to discriminate between the top and bottom of the ocean. The imagery revealed the ship measured 33 feet (10 meters) long.

The freshwater environment and lack of wave activity had kept the vessel in pristine condition, even though there were a few iron nails at each end. To Ødegård, the wearing away of the metal is a clear indication that the wreck has rested on the lake bed for quite some time, since corrosion would take hundreds of years to occur. Eventually, the ship may lose its structure when all of the nails disintegrate, he said.

There is evidence that the central rudder was used in the stern of the vessel before the late 13th century. Archaeologists were able to estimate the ships range from 1300 to 1850 through the combination of those two features.

The ship appears to have been built using a Norse technique, in which the planks of the body are overlapped with one another. This method was used during the Viking Age as a way to make the vessel lighter and stronger and is known as clinker construction.

Since the shipwreck was found in the middle of the lake, Ødegård believed the ship had gone down in bad weather. It’s most likely that the ship used square-shaped sails, he added, that proved to be difficult to navigate for seafarers caught in extremely windy conditions.

“Wooden shipwrecks can be very well preserved in freshwater, since they lack the organisms that usually eat wood that are found, for instance, in the ocean,” Ødegård said. If we were going to find intact Iron Age or medieval vehicles in Norway, I believe Lake Mjsa was the place to look, since it has a very distinct maritime history with a lot of seafaring and trade.

During the Viking Age, the lake served as a big trade route, although there are notable gaps in what is known before and during these times, according to Ødegård. “No matter what the age, any find will help us to understand better how the development in shipbuilding tradition was like in an inland lake, as compared to the Nordic countries.”

On the final day of the mission, the researchers had sent an ROV down to capture footage but bad weather forced them to abandon the mission. He wants to try again next year.

We found ships from the early days of human activity in the area. They could show up and be in good condition, according to degrd. “You can’t rule out anything.”