The United States Navy is testing whether the new and newest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, is ready to face the trial of war. To do this, the Navy detonates explosives near the ship to ensure it can handle the types of events that can be found during the actual war. The explosion was strong enough to register as a small earthquake.
Construction in USS Gerald R. Ford kicked back in 2005, marking a working year and stable progress until the ship replaced USS Enterprise at the end of 2012. USS Gerald R. Ford was officially assigned in the summer of 2017 and the possibility of participating in his first deployment in 2023 or 2024.
The explosive test took place last week near the Florida coast, even though it would not be the last of this test. It was called a full ship shock test, this event was intended to show that new ships could withstand explosions like this when in battle. Three explosions involving 40,000 pound detonation will be carried out as part of this trial.
The next two tests will take place at several points this month and in July, with the right date depending on the factors including marine and weather mammal activities. Although the Navy told Defense News that it scheduled this explosion to comply with “environmental mitigation requirements,” the critics said the amount of detonation could cause death and serious injury near Sealife.
Although the explosion lasted about 100 miles from Palm Coast in Florida, USGS said the detonation was recorded as 3.9 a large earthquake on the coastline. According to the Director of the Marine Mammalian Protection Project Michael Jasny in a statement to The Guardian, the US Navy usually uses a “much smaller” explosion as part of this test, increases concerns over the impact of human activities in the environment.