Response of ocean bottom dwellers exposed to underwater shock waves

Abstract

The paper reports results of experiments to estimate the mortality of ocean bottom dwellers, ostracoda, against underwater shock wave exposures. This study is motivated to verify the possible survival of ocean bottom dwellers, foraminifera, from the devastating underwater shock waves induced mass extinction of marine creatures which took place at giant asteroid impact events. Ocean bottom dwellers under study were ostracoda, the replacement of foraminifera, we readily sampled from ocean bottoms. An analogue experiment was performed on a laboratory scale to estimate the domain and boundary of over-pressures at which marine creatures’ mortality occurs. Ostracods were exposed to underwater shock waves generated by the explosion of 100mg PETN pellets in a chamber at shock over-pressures ranging up to 44MPa. Pressure histories were measured simultaneously on 113 samples. We found that bottom dwellers were distinctively killed against overpressures of 12MPa and this value is much higher than the usual shock over-pressure threshold value for marine-creatures having lungs and balloons.