In April 1917, the German submarine UC-30 was making its way through waters near Rømø after abandoning a mission to Ireland because of engine problems. The vessel had turned back toward Germany and was close to reaching home. UC-30 was carrying 18 mines and six torpedoes, leaving the submarine packed with explosives.
On April 19, it struck a British mine and sank. All 27 crew members died. For nearly a century, the wreck remained lost beneath the sea.
Danish diver Gert Normann Andersen finally discovered it in 2016. UC-30 later became one of the wrecks examined through the major NorthSeaWrecks research project. Katrine Juul Andresen, a professor at the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University, helped investigate the site.
Working with navy divers, Andresen and her colleagues collected water and sediment from around the wreck. They also sampled starfish and mussels living on or near the submarine. "Civilian diving is not permitted on the wreck, so we received great assistance from navy divers.
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 divers also recorded video and took photos, which we subsequently used to assess the exposure of the mines and the condition of the wreck." The results showed that explosive material from the wreck is entering the surrounding marine environment. "We found traces of TNT in the wildlife, the seabed, and the water column. Pollution is definitely occurring.
The question is how significant the effect is and how far from the wreck the pollution impacts the marine environment. It is likely a relatively localized source of pollution, but it will worsen as the wreck continues to deteriorate and expose more of the explosive material inside the mines," she says. During World War I, control of the North Sea was strategically vital to both Germany and Britain.
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