FY 2007
Hydroacoustic monitoring of the Bransfield Strait and Drake Passage, Antarctica: A first analysis of seafloor seismicity, cryogenic acoustic sources, and cetacean vocalizations
Dziak, R.P., M. Park, H. Matsumoto, D.R. Bohnenstiehl, J.H. Haxel, D.K. Mellinger, K. Stafford, and W.S. Lee
In Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Antarctic and Earth Science, Santa Barbara, August 2007, 5 pp (2007) |
| In November 2005, our research consortium deployed an Autonomous Underwater Hydrophone (AUH) array to begin long-term hydroacoustic monitoring of the waters in the Bransfield Strait and the Drake Passage. The array takes advantage of the efficient propagation of sound in the oceans to detect, locate, and analyze the distribution of small- to moderate-size earthquakes along the South Shetland Islands, Bransfield Strait, and Scotia Sea. Preliminary review indicates the hydrophones recorded hundreds of earthquakes from the seafloor spreading centers and submarine volcanoes within the Bransfield Strait, as well as events from the subduction zone off the South Shetland Islands and from throughout the Scotia Sea. Moreover, we have observed harmonic tremor produced by the movement of large icebergs, and have detected the vocalizations of several critically endangered cetacean species. |
