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 400 m 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.
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December 2017
December 01 2017
Characteristics of seismic survey pulses and the ambient soundscape in Baffin Bay and Melville Bay, West Greenland
S. Bruce Martin;
S. Bruce Martin
a)
JASCO Applied Sciences (Canada) Ltd.
, 32 Troop Avenue, Suite 202, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B3B 1Z1, Canada
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Marie-Noël R. Matthews;
Marie-Noël R. Matthews
JASCO Applied Sciences (Canada) Ltd.
, 32 Troop Avenue, Suite 202, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B3B 1Z1, Canada
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Jeff T. MacDonnell;
Jeff T. MacDonnell
b)
JASCO Applied Sciences (Canada) Ltd.
, 32 Troop Avenue, Suite 202, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B3B 1Z1, Canada
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Koen Bröker
Koen Bröker
c)
Shell Global Solutions International B.V.
, Lange Kleiweg 40, 2288GK Rijswijk, The Netherlands
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a)
Also at: Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, P.O. Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada. Electronic mail: bruce.martin@jasco.com
b)
Current address: Acoustic Data Analysis Center, P.O. Box 99000, Stn Forces Halifax, Nova Scotia B3K 5X5, Canada.
c)
Also at: Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 11103, 9700 CC Groningen, The Netherlands.
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 142, 3331–3346 (2017)
Article history
Received:
August 28 2016
Accepted:
November 09 2017
Citation
S. Bruce Martin, Marie-Noël R. Matthews, Jeff T. MacDonnell, Koen Bröker; Characteristics of seismic survey pulses and the ambient soundscape in Baffin Bay and Melville Bay, West Greenland. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 December 2017; 142 (6): 3331–3346. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5014049
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