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How much ocean life did that wipe out I wonder?

• refurb 5y ago
  Lots. But only 0.0000001% of the ocean was affected.
  • kajecounterhack 5y ago
    Life is not evenly distributed throughout the ocean, so it's possible it had little effect if the location was chosen wisely (away from structure, in wide open water). Not that I think they chose wisely, the US military tends to not care about stuff like that :/
    • Retric 5y ago
      You don’t exactly put aircraft carriers in shallow water, so this blast is unlikely to have done much to any appreciable amount of ocean life.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
        The Nimitz class carriers have a draft of 11.3m and can navigate the Suez Canal, the Gerald R. Ford class carriers have a draft of 12m so I assume they could too. The Suez Canal has a minimum depth of 12m at low tide. USS Nimitz navigating Suez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_HOjxu8nB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_HOjxu8nB8
        • pdonis 5y ago
          The fact that carriers can navigate the Suez canal does not mean they can do anything else while they're doing it. A carrier in the Suez canal will be moving very slowly and all other operations besides navigating the ship and keeping its power and engines running will be shut down. Carriers operate in deep water. The only times they are in shallow water are coming into or leaving port, or transiting a canal like the Suez in order to get somewhere.
          • TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
            I don’t know what you’re arguing against. The parent comment made a verifiably false statement, I provided video evidence to the contrary. It may not be carrying out battle manoeuvres in the canal, but it also isn’t immune to threat while it’s there. I don’t see much reason why it couldn’t operate CWIS or launch missiles or aircraft while it’s there if necessary. They could also serve at least some of their other, non-war, support functions while in shallow waters.
            • Retric 5y ago
              As to why you wouldn’t launch aircraft, surface winds while unable to reorient the ship are a problem. Now, they could probably launch an aircraft which is going to land somewhere else, again depending on wind conditions. Also, shallow waters means something specific, the surface waves are affected by the sea floor. The US Navy actively avoids those conditions for a host of reasons.
              • pdonis 5y ago
                > they could probably launch an aircraft which is going to land somewhere else They couldn't launch anything that wasn't a helicopter or a VTOL aircraft. Carriers need upwards of 30 knots of wind over the deck, in the right direction (blowing from the front) to launch ordinary planes. You won't get that transiting a canal. Carriers do it by going to full speed in the open sea.
            • pdonis 5y ago
              > It may not be carrying out battle manoeuvres in the canal, but it also isn’t immune to threat while it’s there. The threat in such a place would not be an underwater explosion a couple of miles away, or a shock wave similar to that caused by such an explosion. It would be bombs or missiles targeted directly at the carrier. Which is not the kind of threat the test in the article under discussion was testing for. > I don’t see much reason why it couldn’t operate CWIS or launch missiles or aircraft while it’s there if necessary. Operate CWIS, yes, in the unlikely event that it had to. I don't think carriers carry missile launchers of their own. Launch aircraft, not unless they're helicopters or VTOL aircraft; see my response to Retric downthread. Even that kind of launch would be dicey while transiting a canal, since the carrier still needs some room to maneuver for such launches.
  • spodek 5y ago
    Any one plastic bottle affects a yet smaller fraction, and yet we have several ocean gyres filled with material that will last centuries. And they're growing. I hadn't thought of this consideration before the grandparent of this post, but now that it's been mentioned, it does seem that the time we can blanket dismiss environmental effects in favor of national security are over.
    • userbinator 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure no one is going to be setting off 40klb explosives at quite the same rate as plastics are being made and disposed of.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
• Wohlf 5y ago
  Lots on the microscopic level, doubtful any fish or birds since they'd be scared away by the disturbances or not there in the first place. The ocean is massive and the Navy take efforts to minimize their impact on the environment, they wouldn't have done this over a reef.
• justinator 5y ago
  To be honest, the answer is, "we don't know". And I mean it: this is a nuclear powered carrier, and if it's not clear, there's no permanent place where we store such waste. The Navy has a pretty dirty history of simply throwing such waste overboard before, "the knew any better".
• gooseus 5y ago
  Prob a decent amount, but not because they were at the site of the explosion, but because an explosion will send a concussive sound wave through the ocean much farther than air. Found this assessment by DOI online and it has some equations and studies done on all sorts of turtles, fish, and marine mammals[1]. I think the largest explosions they are looking at are <1K lbs, this test was 40k lbs. [1] https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/migrated/deepwaterhorizon/adminrecord/upload/Draft-Assessment-and-Mitigation-of-Marine-Explosives-Guidance-for-Protected-Species-in-the-Southeast-U-S-Version-1-prepared-by-Kyle-Baker-NMFS-February-2008.pdf https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/migrated/deepwaterho...
  • Nursie 5y ago
    That's what I was thinking - it's grenade-fishing on a huge scale. I hope at least some consideration and minimisation of this went into the plan.