OCR Staff and friends will be hosting a table at the Bay Area Science Festival “Discovery Days” at AT&T Park just off the Embarcadero. When: Saturday November 3 What time: 11:00am – 4:00pm PDT Where: AT&T Park. We’ll be on…
Report from Kansas Acoustics Society meeting
I’ve just returned from a semi-annual Acoustics Society meeting in Kansas City. These events bring together many scientists, researchers, engineers, and academics who are plying the broad arena of acoustics.. The field of acoustics is a potpourri of disciplines that…
Press takes interest in historic ocean noise
This week I delivered a paper on the historic noise levels in the ocean prior to industrialized whaling. It turns out that the ocean was pretty noisy back in 1800, but the noise was all biological − with a preponderance…
Central Coast Seismic Interview, Thur. Oct 11, 2pm KPFA
I will be discussing the controversial Diablo Canyon seismic survey proposal today on Caroline Casey’s “Visionary Activist Show” at 2pm PST on KPFA. Pacifica shows up on various frequencies in the Bay Area and can be found online at KPFA.org.…
Airgun surveys are the real gateway to Arctic Oil
Finally after a whole season of a frightening “comedy of errors,” Shell Oil has postponed a large part of their Arctic exploratory drilling project until next year. They will be building infrastructure in the time they have remaining this season,…
El Diablo on California’s Central Coast
In the early spring of this year I was apprised of a proposed seismic survey action on the California Central Coast. The project taken on by PG&E is to map the geology, fault lines, and earthquake potential of the areas…
Ongoing Whale Behavioral Response Study
With as much effort that has gone into understanding how noise impacts marine mammals − and all of the contention that orbits around setting appropriate exposure mitigation levels, we still know very little about which noises (and how much) have…
Video Series: Intro to Odontocetes & Mysticetes
The latest edition to our video series on bioacoustics discusses the distinctions between Mysticetes and Odontocetes (whales, porpoises, and dolphins). http://ocr.org/portfolio/intro-to-odontocetes-mysticetes/ Enjoy!
New discovery of songful bowheads
It’s always a delight to learn something new about ocean life. Some 40 years ago whale researcher Roger Payne came to understand that Humpback whales sang complex, beautiful, and patterned songs. Their haunting melodies released in an LP as “The…