Feature Publication Archive
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Photo: Katy Foster/NOAA Fisheries, under permit 18786
Holt, M.M., C.K. Emmons, R.P. Dziak, D.K. Mellinger, and S.M. Haver (2026): Underwater acoustic monitoring desktop study: A collaborative initiative between Port of Seattle (PoS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-NWFSC 207, U.S. Department of Commerce, doi: 10.25923/g589-6539.
New report released by NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center and PMEL
Since the 1970s, researchers have used passive acoustic approaches to document the presence of locally occurring killer whales in the Salish Sea ecosystem, including endangered Southern Resident killer whales. The Salish Sea consists of the transboundary inland waters of Washington State and southern British Columbia, Canada, and includes several international ports and commercial vessel traffic corridors. Southern Residents rely on sound for finding their fish prey and to communicate among group family... more »
Nieukirk, S.L., D.K. Mellinger, R.P. Dziak, H. Matsumoto, and H. Klinck (2020): Multi-year occurrence of sei whale calls in North Atlantic polar waters. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 147(3), 1842–1850. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0000931
The sei whale is a large baleen whale, in the same genus as the blue whale, found in most of the world's oceans outside the Arctic. From 2009 to 2014, we searched acoustically for sei whales off the northeast coast of Greenland on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. We did this by deploying hydrophones (underwater microphones) and recording ambient sound, then searching the resulting recordings for calls of sei whales. We heard many sei whale calls every summer in regions 600 km (400 mi) north of where they were known to routinely occur. We do not know if these detections surprisingly far north... more »
Fournet, M.E.H., L.P. Matthews, C.M. Gabriele, S. Haver, D.K. Mellinger, and H. Klinck (2018): Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) alter calling behavior in response to natural sounds and vessel noise. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser., 607, 251–268. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps12784
It’s unclear when the human fascination with the voices of humpback whales began, but with the release of the album “Songs of the Humpback Whale” in 1970, humpbacks became arguably the most listened to whales in the world. But humpback whales do more than sing: they also produce a series of vocalizations known as “calls” or “social calls”. While song is produced only by males, calls are produced by males and females of all ages, and are thought to play a critical role in the life history of humpback whales.
The modern world poses a problem for humpback whales that rely on sound; the... more »
Wilcock, W.S.D., R.P. Dziak, M. Tolstoy, W.W. Chadwick, Jr., S.L. Nooner, D.R. Bohnenstiehl, J. Caplan-Auerbach, F. Waldhauser, A.F. Arnulf, C. Baillard, T.-K. Lau, J.H. Haxel, Y.J. Tan, C. Garcia, S. Levy, and M.E. Mann (2018): The recent volcanic history of Axial Seamount: Geophysical insights into past eruption dynamics with an eye toward enhanced observations of future eruptions. Oceanography, 31 (1), 114–123, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2018.117.
Studies of underwater eruptions are essential to understand the processes that form oceanic crust, and the role submarine volcanoes have in exchanging heat and chemicals with the ocean and in supporting chemosynthetic biological communities. The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Cabled Array at Axial Seamount is the world’s most advanced underwater volcano observatory, building upon 30+ years of sustained geophysical monitoring at this site with autonomous and remote systems as part of PMEL’s New Millennium... more »
Weirathmueller, M.J., K.M. Stafford, W.S.D. Wilcock, R.P. Dziak, and A.M. Tréhu (2017): Spatial and temporal trends in fin whale vocalizations recorded in the NE Pacific Ocean between 2003-2013. PLoS ONE, 12 (10), e0186127, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186127.
Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) spend most of their lives ranging widely throughout ocean basins and thus can be extremely difficult to study. Nevertheless, understanding the fin whales’ population structure is of particular importance for management and recovery efforts due to their status as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Fin whales produce relatively simple, repeated signals that appear to have not changed significantly over time. The most commonly observed vocalization produced by fin whales—the “20 Hz pulse”—has been recorded throughout the world’... more »