Bombs Underwater

One day, you and a friend are scuba diving off the shores of your favorite Pacific island. Its a normal sunny day, and you are watching a school of fish while your friend is off exploring a rock. Then all of a sudden the fish scatter and you hear a thunderous boom, scaring the crap out of you and the fish. Using those survival instincts you swim to the shore for safety and grab your buddy on the way. Your buddy is confused because did not hear anything, but you heard a bomb go off. So what happened?


Science! Underwater sound moves funny and far according to this math heavy article.






Really funny and


really far.


So what happened was, a bomb went off thousands of miles away and you hear it! Lucky you. The fun and magical properties of the deep sea allows sound to move or propagate in horizontal channels. These properties mainly deal with temperature and pressure at different depths. The result is low, or deep bass sounds, can move very far distances underwater. One time a 1.8 kg of TNT (very small) was detected over 19 thousand km away (very far). That less energy than a gallon of gas and almost half way around the earth!

So the next time you are under the sea and hear a large noise, don't panic, it can be miles and miles away.