A WWI Submarine Wreck Is Leaking Explosives Into The North Sea
Published: 17 September 2026
By Jess Cockerill
via the Science Alert website
A navy diver collects samples from the wreck of a WW1 German submarine
A navy diver collects samples from the wreck of a WWI German submarine. (Katrine Juul Andresen)
A German WW1 submarine known as SM UC-30 was returning home in April 1917 when it hit a British mine and sank.
Twenty-seven men were lost in the wreck, along with the 18 mines and six torpedoes the submarine was loaded with.
For decades, nobody knew where the boat ended up.
Then, in 2016, Danish diver Gert Normann Andersen rediscovered the sunken boat and its toxic arsenal on the floor of the North Sea.
Civilian diving was forbidden due to the risks, but geoscientist Katrine Juul Andresen from Aarhus University in Denmark was not put off.
She wanted to know if the explosives were leaking from the wreck, and what impact they might be having on the surrounding marine life.
As part of an ongoing effort to locate and investigate dangerous wrecks in the North Sea, Andresen and her collaborators worked with the Royal Danish Navy to explore the site.
“We received great assistance from navy divers,” she explains.
“After receiving instructions, they dove down and collected sediment samples, water samples, and wildlife samples from various locations on the wreck and from the surrounding seabed.”
The Navy divers also took video and photos of the wreck, which helped the scientists assess the wreck’s condition and how exposed the mines were.
“We found traces of TNT in the wildlife, the seabed, and the water column,” Andresen says.
“Pollution is definitely occurring. The question is how significant the effect is and how far from the wreck the pollution impacts the marine environment.”
She thinks the pollution source is relatively localized, but says it will worsen as the wreck continues to deteriorate and expose more of the explosive material inside the mines.
⇒ Read the entire article on the Science Alert website.
External Web Site Notice: This page contains information directly presented from an external source. The terms and conditions of this page may not be the same as those of this website. Click here to read the full disclaimer notice for external web sites. Thank you.
