Abstract
Offshore marine petroleum seismic surveys involve the repetitive use of intense, short bursts of low-frequency noise, the reflections of which are used to image subsea geology. The seismic signal is produced by a spatial array of sources, usually air guns that violently release high-pressure compressed air into the water column. Although the signal produced by a single air gun is largely omnidirectional at low frequencies (typically, most energy over 10–150 Hz), the signal received by a spatial array of individual air guns is highly directional and dependent on the array configuration and receiver orientation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
McCauley RD, Duncan AJ, Fewtrell J, Jenner C, Jenner M, Penrose JD, Prince RIT, Adhitya A, Murdoch J, McCabe K (2003a) Marine seismic surveys: Analysis and propagation of air-gun signals; and effects of exposure on humpback whales, sea turtles, fishes and squid. In: Environmental implications of offshore oil and gas development in Australia: Further research. Australian Petroleum Production Exploration Association, Canberra, ACT, Australia, pp 364–521.
McCauley RD, Fewtrell J (2008) Experiments and observations of fish exposed to seismic survey pulses. Bioacoustics 17:205–207.
McCauley RD, Fewtrell J, Popper AN (2003b) High intensity anthropogenic sound damages fish ears. J Acoust Soc Am 113:638-642.
Popper AN, Hastings MC (2009) The effects of human-generated sound on fish. Integr Zool 4:43–52.
Popper AN, Smith ME, Cott PA, Hanna BW, MacGillivray AO, Austin ME, Mann DA (2005) Effects of exposure to seismic air gun use on hearing of three fish species. J Acoust Soc Am 117:3958–3971.
Song J, Mann DA, Cott PA, Hanna BW, Popper AN (2008) The inner ears of northern Canadian freshwater fishes following exposure to seismic air gun sounds. J Acoust Soc Am 124:1360–1366.
Acknowledgments
Santos Ltd., Adelaide, SA, Australia, supported the fish hearing experiments in the Timor Sea and Woodside Energy Ltd., Perth, WA, Australia, supported the experiments in the Kimberley. Andrew Levings, Horst Fischer, Julie Lloyd, and Alex Beatty supported the Timor Sea field work. Malcolm Perry, Frank Thomas, and Michael Archer supported the Kimberley experiments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this paper
Cite this paper
McCauley, R.D., Kent, C.S. (2012). A Lack of Correlation Between Air Gun Signal Pressure Waveforms and Fish Hearing Damage. In: Popper, A.N., Hawkins, A. (eds) The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 730. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7311-5_54
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7311-5_54
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-7310-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-7311-5
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)