• Question: When lightening hits the sea, why don't all the fish die?

    Asked by helloimholly to Anna, Chris, Jane, Iain, Nick on 11 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anna Middleton

      Anna Middleton answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      @helloimholly
      I just don’t know the answer to this. I’d assume that some do die, is there a zoology group on here?

    • Photo: Chris Cole

      Chris Cole answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      The sea is a huge volume of water so the electricity in lightning disappears very quickly. I guess if a fish was near the surface at the point of a lightning strike it might get fried, but otherwise it’s fine.

    • Photo: Jane Charlesworth

      Jane Charlesworth answered on 19 Mar 2014:

      This is a really good question. Basically there are two things at play. First, the sea is huge compared with the amount of electricity in a lightning strike. Second, water conducts electricity, so the electricity from a lightning strike spreads out very quickly through the massive volume of water. Air, on the other hand, is what we call an insulator, because it doesn’t conduct electricity. This means that when someone on land is hit by lightning they get a concentrated dose of electricity and fry. In the sea, if a fish was unlucky enough to be swimming very close to where the lightning hit, it probably would die, but most fish will be just fine.

Comments

  • Photo: Amar

    Amar commented on :

    Hi, I’m from the Cancer Zone but I think I can help. Lightning, and electricity in general, wants to travel thought the most conductive path. When a electricity passes through biological tissues it heats it up and causes damage. So if you were struck by lightning this is what would happen. The fish in the sea are not in the path of the lightning as the sea water around them is a better electrical conductor. So the fishes are ok. Hope that helps!

  • Photo: Clara

    Clara commented on :

    Hi @helloimholly.

    When lightning strikes the sea, some of the fish nearby will die. This is because seawater is a good conductor of electricity, and lightning contains a lot! But the electricity will spread out very quickly, so further out from where the lightning hit, the fish will only feel a tingle. Even further out from that and the fish won’t notice the lightning happened at all.

    If the fish are in a small body of water, such as a pond, or a small lake, a single lightning strike could kill all of the fish swimming in there at once.

    Hope that helps!
    Clara