Characteristics of seismic survey pulses and the ambient soundscape in Baffin Bay and Melville Bay, West Greenland

In 2012 a seismic survey campaign involving four vessels was conducted in Baffin Bay, West Greenland. Long-distance (150 km) pre-survey acoustic modeling was performed in accordance with regulatory requirements. Four acoustic recorders, three with hydrophones at 100, 200, and 400m depths, measured a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Main Authors: Martin, S. Bruce, Matthews, Marie-Noel R., MacDonnell, Jeff T., Broker, Koen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
PORPOISE PHOCOENA-PHOCOENA
CRITICAL RATIO MEASUREMENTS
MARINE MAMMALS
UNDERWATER AUDIOGRAMS
BEHAVIORAL-RESPONSES
AMPHIBIOUS HEARING
AERIAL AUDIOGRAMS
SIGNAL DURATION
TONE PULSES
NOISE
Baffin Bay
Bowles
Greene
Greenland
Baffin
Phocoena phocoena
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/11370/a249603a-0eed-4a3c-888c-d96a7fae62b2
https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/a249603a-0eed-4a3c-888c-d96a7fae62b2
https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5014049
https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/98624975/1.5014049.pdf
Description
Summary:In 2012 a seismic survey campaign involving four vessels was conducted in Baffin Bay, West Greenland. Long-distance (150 km) pre-survey acoustic modeling was performed in accordance with regulatory requirements. Four acoustic recorders, three with hydrophones at 100, 200, and 400m depths, measured ambient and anthropogenic sound during the survey. Additional recordings without the surveys were made from September 2013 to September 2014. The results show that (1) the soundscape of Baffin Bay is typical for open ocean environments and Melville Bay's soundscape is dominated by glacial ice noise; (2) there are distinct multipath arrivals of seismic pulses 40 km from the array; (3) seismic sound levels vary little as a function of depth; (4) high fidelity pre-survey acoustic propagation modeling produced reliable results; (5) the daily SEL did not exceed regulatory thresholds and were different using Southall, Bowles, Ellison, Finneran, Gentry, Greene, Kastak, Ketten, Miller, Nachtigall, Richardson, Thomas, and Tyack [(2007) Aquat. Mamm. 33, 411-521] or NOAA weightings [National Marine Fisheries Service (2016). NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-OPR-55, p. 178]; (6) fluctuations of SPL with range were better described by additive models than linear regression; and (7) the survey increased the 1-min SPL by 28 dB, with most of the energy below 100 Hz; energy in the 16 000 Hz octave band was 20 dB above the ambient background 6 km from the source. (C) 2017 Acoustical Society of America.

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