The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford designed by the United States Navy is going through a battery of tests to see if it is ready for real action. One of those tests consisted of detonating a 40,000-pound (18,144-kilogram) underwater explosion to see if the ship's metal could withstand it. The tests, known as the Full Ship Shock Trials meddles with the mettle of the metal.
The explosion, which occurred in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast, registered as a 3.9 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale according to the US Geological Survey. Yikes. That can't be good. According to the Navy the tests are being conducted "within a narrow schedule that complies with environmental mitigation requirements, respecting known migration patterns of marine life in the test area."
