How does nuclear explosion affect the underwater wildlife?
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It absolutely devastates it.
US Underwater nuclear tests in Alaska, and French tests in French Polynesia wiped out all aquatic life on an absolutely massive scale that even 60 years later it is still nowhere near recovered.
Underwater nuclear explosions do so much damage underwater that the [nuclear regulatory commission in a 2015 report](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/er-2015-0039) described it as an extreme threat to local biodiversity.
To understand why nuclear blasts are so much more devastating under water, we need to look at how the blast travels.
Water being much more dense than air means it transfers energy much more efficiently. this means that while the nuclear blast above ground spend much more energy on transferring outwards, this translated to be being limited to the speed of sound, But because water is so much more dense, and also virtually uncompressible, the speed of sound is almost 300% faster under water.
This is why you can hear a sonar ping at “just” 140 decibel over 300 miles away under water, That would be like standing in Baltimore and being able to hear a jet plane take off in New Jersey.
Now, keep in mind, a nuclear explosion is all the way up at 278 decibels. Your lungs rapture at just 170 decibels.
Now also keep in mind that the energy or sound blast from the nuclear explosion under water travel close to an incredible 1500 meters a second, or close to one mile per second.
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