Seismic airguns have the potential to cause injury, hearing loss, behavioral changes, and masking in fishes, marine mammals, and possibly even many invertebrates. Two criteria for assessing the potential impacts of airgun sounds are: 1) peak pressure and …
Sounds produced by seismic airguns have the potential to cause injury, hearing loss, behavioral changes, and masking in fishes, marine mammals, and invertebrates. However, data on the effects of airguns on marine life are limited.
During seismic surveys, ships pull large arrays of airguns that release loud pressurized blasts of air through the ocean and into the seafloor. Noise from airguns can disturb, injure or kill marine animals from zooplankton, the base of the food web, to large whales.
Teledyne Bolt continues to supply a wide range of seismic energy sources intended for application to all phases of exploration and production seismology. Teledyne Bolt's leadership in energy source technology extends beyond the design and manufacture of air guns.
As shown in Figure 1, several air guns of varying sizes are suspended in an ‘air gun array’ below surface floats towed behind a seismic vessel. A ‘gun umbilical’ links air compressors on the vessel to each sub-array, as well as supplying power and data telemetry.
Seismic airguns are used to find oil and gas deep underneath the ocean floor. Their use can be very harmful to marine life. Oceana works hard to prevent the dangerous practice of seismic airgun blasting, which is the first step toward offshore drilling.
Seismic airgun blasting is a process used to search for and map oil and gas deposits deep below the seafloor. A typical seismic survey involves a ship traveling across the ocean in successive parallel lines while towing one or more seismic airgun arrays.
Seismic airgun blasting is a process that the oil and gas industry uses to identify and map oil and gas deposits under the seafloor. A typical seismic airgun survey involves a vessel traveling in successive parallel lines while towing one or multiple airgun arrays.
Seismic airgun blasting is a practice commonly used by the oil and gas industries to locate deposits deep beneath the seafloor. It is also used for research applications to map buried sediments. An array of airguns is towed a vessel, blasting extremely loud pulses of compressed air into the water column and deep into the seabed.
For marine animals like whales and dolphins who primarily use sound for communication, feeding, and mating, seismic airgun blasts have the potential to disrupt all three processes.