Now the US government has given the go ahead for oil exploration along the east coast which involves the use of sonic cannons. These sonic cannons shoot sound waves 100 times louder than a jet engine through waters shared by endangered whales and turtles. The exploration for oil will lead to offshore drilling that now requires the sophisticated sonic mapping technology as a first step. Its like a sonogram of the earth, said Andy Radford, a petroleum engineer at the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas trade association in Washington DC. You cant see the oil and gas, but you can see the structures in the earth that might hold oil and gas. The sonic cannons are often fired continually for weeks or months, and multiple mapping projects are expected to be operating simultaneously as companies gather competitive data. Companies will need whale-spotting observers onboard, and undersea acoustic tests will be required before each mapping trip. And, even though certain habitats will be closed during birthing or feeding seasons, the sounds — which water amplifies by orders of magnitude — pose unavoidable dangers for whales, fish and sea turtles that also use sound to communicate across hundreds of miles.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 18:39:32 +0000
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