Audio Reveals Noisy Ocean Floor 7 Miles Deep In Mariana Trench
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MARIANA TRENCH (CBSMiami) -- While silence fills the depths of outer space, researchers are finding out that our planet's oceans can be quite deafening.
Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have released audio recordings taken at the bottom of the deepest part of the world's ocean -- the Mariana Trench -- that show just how noisy 7 miles deep can be.
"You would think that the deepest part of the ocean would be one of the quietest places on Earth," said Robert Dziak, a NOAA research oceanographer and chief project scientist. "Yet there is almost constant noise."
Earthquakes, typhoons and even the moans of whales dominate the ocean sound field.
Sound was recorded for a three-week period at the Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines and south of Japan, in the hopes of exploring how human-created noise may be impacting the marine environment.
NOAA engineers said getting the recordings in an underwater trough deep enough to fit Mount Everest was quite the challenge.
"The pressure at that depth is incredible," said Haru Matsumoto.
As if weather and the elements weren't tough enough, the recording device, called a hydrophone, had to be lowered into the water at just the right speed in order to avoid the ceramic device cracking from the rapid change in pressure.
Check out the Challenger Deep 2015 audio below (hit back on your browser to return to this page):
- The calls of dolphins or whales
- Moans from a baleen whale
- A propeller ship passing overhead
- A 5.0 magnitude earthquake
The team plans to return in 2017 with a deep-ocean camera.