If water is a great conductor of water, why aren't all of the animals in the ocean or lakes dead from thunderstorms?
2006-11-26 15:41:57 · 4 answers · asked by Agent Lully 2 in Environment
Pure water is actually a bad conductor of heat and electricity. However salt in the water like the ocean makes it a good conductor. If lightning strikes ocean water, then all the electric charges are dissipated in to the ocean water. The sea animals will always be the at the same voltage level of the ocean water ( ground volt = 0 ).
For a living system to suffer the passage of electric charge through its body, its body should be the (only) pathway for the charge to flow from the high potential to the lower.
Therefore, unless the lightining strikes the creature or its vicinity and dissipates through it to the rest of the ocean water, it is not affected.
2006-11-26 15:57:31 · answer #1 · answered by Inquirer 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No water...much worse. A lot of our convenience gadgets are, or can run off a battery, so we'd have them, at least for a while. As for the rest? I did without a computer for most of my life...when I was a kid, it wasn't unusual for the TV repairman to have to take the family's only TV back to the shop to fix, which meant no TV for about a week. I'd survive. No electricity for a day? We'd spend the day outside, doing stuff in the yard, kicking back on the deck, firing up the grill, etc. Angelface and I would be just fine. I guess in the evening, I guess we'd have to eat and do everything else by candlelight, and believe me, the girl has enough candles to get a town the size of Omaha through a power outage....and then I guess we'd have to go to bed early. In which case, we'd be more than just all right. No water for a day? We're bugging out...loading me, my sweetie, and Scooter the Lab into the car and heading for somewhere that does have water. These surveys...very nice....lotsa fun.
2016-05-23 07:42:04 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The ocean is vast and disperses electricity when it hits, although if fish are close to a strike, I am sure they will sustain some damage.
2006-11-26 15:50:09 · answer #3 · answered by kate 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because basically they're like birds on an electric wire.They're not directly in the path of the ground.
2006-11-26 15:45:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋