Some whale songs can be given to scientists valuable information on ocean geography, according to a to study published Thursday in the journal Science. Moreover, thHis songs can be used as a form of seismic testing, which uses explosions of sound to trace the ocean floor. Forms of this technology it can be harmful to whales and other marine species.
If we had only listened more closely to the whales, we might not have needed to develop certain practices that would harm them.
“I’m not at all surprised by this study,” said Michael Jasny, director of the NRDC Marine Mammal Protection Project. “And if you had asked me to guess which animal this study used, I would have said fin whales. Fin whale calls they have been confused for some years like a regular geological moan … It was a while before oceanographers found out that it was actually an animal ”.
Jasny, who did not participate in this study, noted that scientists and some industries that rely on seismic testing have been exploring for years how to replace natural sounds, including geological noises and animal sounds.of human manufacture.
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Fin whales can scream quite loudly, hydrologically speaking. Your calls can reach up to 189 decibels—stronger than firecrackers or shots and comparable to the noises of large ships, the study explains. They are also very consistent: Fto the whales they string individual calls into long, low-frequency songs which can last for hours, taking short breaks just to surface to get air.
This consistent noise, according to the study, it has valuable information stored inside it. The researchers examined six separate songs, ranging from 2.5 to 2.5 5 hours, from individual whales captured at ocean floor seismometer stations off the coast of Oregon, which were initially installed to monitor seismic activity along a fault zone.
“The powerful sound waves that produce these songs reverberate and refract through the layers of rock beneath the station,” the study notes. The researchers were able to use these recordings to gather information about the sediment along the soil and the crust beneath it. “Our study shows that animal vocalizations are useful not only for studying the animals themselves, but also for investigating the environment they inhabit,” the authors write.
It is helpful to know what is happening on the ocean floor for several reasons. Unfortunately, exploring oil and gas reserves on the ocean floor has become one of the most common:i more disturbing—uses of technology. To analyze the seabed, the fossil fuel industry uses seismic weapons that fire incredibly loud explosions, disturbing marine mammals that they have evolved to use sound as the main underwater navigator.
Seismic weapons “are towed behind ships to the surface of the water,” Jasny explained. “The sounds they generate must go down through the column of water, hundreds or thousands of meters, penetrate the seabed, penetrate layers of sediment …5, 10 kilometers to what is interested in the industry—and then the sound has to go up again and be received by the ship to transmit information worth millions or billions of dollars. “
“The air pistols come out about every ten seconds approximately for weeks or months. JoIt just tears the fabric of ocean life, ”he continued. “There have been studies indicating that it could mask the songs of whales, especially fin whales and humpback whales, thousands of miles from the source.so that a single seismic study could interfere with the breeding of fin whales. “
The study quickly realizes that calls to fin whales are unlikely to replace such high-power seismic surveys. Fortunately, as the price of oil falls worldwide and the search for new offshore reserves becomes a riskier financial gamble, the industry has suffered a series of setbacks in its drive to find more oil, included national legislation to prohibit the practice in certain areas i concentrated local opposition.
However, there are other uses of seismic technology that do not serve fossil fuels and this could be aided by new research on the use of natural sounds. Offshore construction work, for example, including the construction of offshore wind turbines and other renewable infrastructure, it must be based on data on the ocean floor to properly position projects.
“In general, there is great potential in using a large number of both geological and biological sounds …[this is] an exciting study, “Jasny said.” It makes you think of the sounds that animals make as the driving force of human exploration. There are so many things we don’t know about the oceans. “