A US navy aircraft carrier has undergone its first "shock trial," after being subjected to a detonation of 20 metric tons of explosives that registered as a 3.9 magnitude earthquake.

The US Navy was trying to find out if the USS Gerald R. Ford, which cost $13 billion (€11 billion) to build, could withstand combat conditions and is ready to go to war.

The Navy announced the test in a statement, also releasing video footage of the blast on Sunday, two days after trials took place in the Atlantic Ocean.

It showed water shoot from the ocean in what US media described as a 40,000-pound (18,144-kilogram) explosion.

The explosives were detonated just a few meters away from the USS Gerald R. Ford, one of the largest and newest aircraft carriers in the world, off the coast of Florida.

The United States Geological Survey recorded the explosion as a 3.9 magnitude earthquake on Friday.

The testing was carried out underwater, with a Navy ship being above water; the last such test carried out by the US Navy took place in 2016.

"The US Navy conducts shock trials of new ship designs using live explosives to confirm that our warships can continue to meet demanding mission requirements under harsh conditions they might encounter in battle," the Navy said in its statement. "The first-in-class aircraft carrier was designed using advanced computer modeling methods, testing, and analysis to ensure the ship is hardened to withstand battle conditions, and these shock trials provide data used in validating the shock hardness of the ship." 

Upon completion of the explosive tests, the ship will face "six months of modernization, maintenance, and repairs" before being deployed for operations, the Navy added.

jf/msh (AFP)