An annotated library of underwater acoustic recordings for testing and training automated algorithms for detecting Antarctic blue and fin whale sounds

• Other Authors: AADC (owner), AADC, DATA OFFICER (distributor), AADC, DATA OFFICER (custodian), AU/AADC > Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australia (hasAssociationWith), Australian Antarctic Data Centre (publisher), Australian Antarctic Division (sponsor), MILLER, BRIAN SETH (hasPrincipalInvestigator), MILLER, BRIAN SETH (author), MILLER, BRIAN SETH (collaborator), STAFFORD, KATHLEEN M (hasPrincipalInvestigator), ŠIROVIĆ, ANA (hasPrincipalInvestigator)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Australian Ocean Data Network
• Subjects: biota; oceans; EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN ACOUSTICS; OCEAN ACOUSTICS > AMBIENT NOISE; BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES > MAMMALS > CETACEANS > BALEEN WHALES; LONG-TERM UNDERWATER ACOUSTIC RECORDING; Passive Acoustic Recorder; MOORINGS; AMD/AU; AMD; CEOS; OCEAN > SOUTHERN OCEAN; GEOGRAPHIC REGION > POLAR; Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctica; baleen whales; Fin whale; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://researchdata.edu.au/an-annotated-library-whale-sounds/2822427

Progress Code: completed Statement: Full description of the particulars of this dataset are described in the draft manuscript contained in the documentation folder. Purpose Since 2001 hundreds of thousands of hours of underwater acoustic recordings have been made throughout the Southern Ocean south of 60°S. Detailed analysis of the presence of the distinctive calls of Antarctic marine mammals in these circumpolar recordings could provide novel insights into their ecology, but manual inspection of the entirety of all recordings by experts would be prohibitively time consuming and expensive. Automated signal processing methods have now developed to the point that they can be applied to these data in a cost-effective manner. However training and evaluating the efficacy of these automated signal processing methods still requires a representative library of sounds that have been annotated to identify the true presence and true absence of different sound types. This work presents such a library of annotated recordings for the purpose of training and evaluating automated detectors of Antarctic blue and fin whales. Creation of the library has focused on the annotation of a representative sample of recordings curated by the Acoustic Trends Working Group of the International Whaling Commission’s Southern Ocean Research Partnership (IWC-SORP) in order to ensure that automated algorithms can be developed and tested across a broad range of instruments, locations, and years. Specifically, we have annotated low frequency sounds (<150 Hz) produced by blue and fin whales, and we have qualitatively noted the presence of common Antarctic noise sources such as ice, wind, seismic surveys, and ships. This annotated library contains both a data set and a data product. The data set contains a sub-sample of underwater recordings made around Antarctica from 2005-2017. These recordings were curated and sub-sampled from a variety of national and academic recording campaigns. Recordings were made using a variety of different ...