Google is coating its underwater cables with Kevlar to fend of sharks

You wouldn’t think that sharks would be a threat to underwater fiber-optic cables, but Google believes that it’s a serious concern, serious enough that the tech company will be wrapping the wires of its Trans-Pacific cable system in a Kevlar-like material to prevent them from being damaged by sharks, a spokesperson for the company recently disclosed.

For unknown reasons, sharks have the tendency to bite fiber-optic cables far more than old-fashioned coaxial copper wires. According to a report by United Nations Environment Program and the International Cable Protection Committee, sharks can see electromagnetic fields and it’s possible that sharks are “encouraged by electromagnetic fields from a suspended cable strumming in currents”.

According to their report: “Fish, including sharks, have a long history of biting cables as identified from teeth embedded in cable sheathings. Barracuda, shallow- and deep-water sharks and others have been identified as causes of cable failure. Bites tend to penetrate the cable insulation, allowing the power conductor to ground with seawater. Attacks on telegraph cables took place mainly on the continental shelf and continued into the coaxial era until 1964. Thereafter, attacks occurred at greater depths, presumably in response to the burial of coaxial and fiber- optic cables on the shelf and slope. Coaxial and fiber-optic cables have attracted the attention of sharks and other fish. The best-documented case comes from the Canary Islands, where the first deep-ocean fiber-optic cable failed on four occasions as a result of shark attacks in water depths of 3,478 to 6,234 feet.”

Read more about the story at The Huffington Post.

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