Characteristics of Sounds Emitted During High-Resolution Marine Geophysical Surveys

Open Access Report 2016

OCS Study BOEM

Crocker S.E. and Fratantonio, F.D.
Scientific questions regarding the impact of noise in the marine environment have resulted in an increasing number of regulatory requirements and precautionary mitigation strategies to reduce the risk associated with high-resolution marine geophysical surveys performed in U.S. waters. However, data to estimate the ecological risk associated with the operation of a given high resolution survey system are frequently lacking. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport (NUWCDIVNPT) conducted a study to quantity characteristics of sounds radiated by a variety of commercial marine geophysical survey systems including Boomers, sparkers, airguns, chirp profilers, side-scan sonars, and multibeam bathymetric echosounders. Calibrated acoustic data including source levels, intensity spectra, and beam patterns were acquired for a total of 18 different marine survey systems. This report presents the analysis of a calibrated acoustic dataset collected to support future permit applications and insitu measurements in coastal U.S. waters.

Link To Publication

Keywords: Airguns, Beam Pattern, Beamwidth, Boomers, Chirp Profilers, Geophysical Survey Systems, Marine Noise, Multibeam Bathymetric Echosounders, Side-Scan Sonars, Sparkers

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