Project Summary

This project seeks to develop a better understanding of the impact of man-made acoustic sources on marine mammals. There is a paucity of definitive data on the topic in terms of both well-calibrated measurements of man-made noise sources, and the differing responses of the many species of whale to these sources. Our project seeks to make the first well-calibrated measurements of the R/V Ewing’s acoustic sources across a broad range of frequencies from 1Hz to 25 kHz. This will provide ground-truthed source levels, in particular, for various configurations of the R/V Ewing’s source array. This is a critical step in understanding the impact of these sources on marine mammals, and to allow constructive fact-based scientific dialogue on the topic. Calibration experiments will be conducted in the shallow, shelf slope, and deep water of the Gulf of Mexico to study the differences in how the sound travels with varying water depth. Once calibration measurements have been made they will be used to model the full propagation field of the R/V Ewing in varying geographical settings. This modeling will provide vital data to help minimize any potential risk to marine mammals in future experiments. In addition, this project will provide ship-time, modeling capabilities and real-time calibrated hydrophone measurements for the independent SWSS D-tag program led by Dr. Peter Tyack to help determine the impact of airguns on sperm whales.