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Asked by to Anna, Elaine, Fiona, Kevin, Darren on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
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Kevin O'Dell answered on 18 Jun 2014:
Not my area of expertise, but I imagine it’s something to do with scale. The sea is a very big body of water, so lightening is kind of diluted out. Whereas if lightening struck a smaller body of water, such as my tropical fish tank, everything would die.
It wouldn’t be too difficult to test this by exposing different volumes of water to different pulses of electricity, and asking whether the poor unfortunate creatures in the water float to the surface or not.
Please do NOT try this at home, nor at school.
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Elaine Cloutman-Green answered on 18 Jun 2014:
I know that if it hits smaller bodies of water fish and other forms of life do die, so there must be something to do with scale. I also imagine it’s to do with things like salt contents and ion distribution. Not my area at all though.
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Anna Bramwell-Dicks answered on 19 Jun 2014:
As the others have said, this is all about the depth of the body of water and how far the electricity from the lightning strike is able to penetrate.
So, fish near the surface when there is a lightning strike are quite likely to be killed because the concentration of the charge is high. But, at deeper levels the current will have mixed with the water and no longer be dangerous. The ocean is an ENORMOUS body of water and can handle a bit of electric current floating around in it.
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Zhiming Darren Tan answered on 19 Jun 2014:
You might not see the fishes die but those that are near the surface where the lightning strikes probably die. Fishes and other creatures further away and deeper down are less affected. So don’t go swimming (whether in the sea or in a pool) when there’s lightning, just because lightning might strike you or very near you.
Comments
rudedestroyermax commented on :
thats a very nice fact. next time ill change my mind if theres lightning when i go swimming