For a creature that figures so well into European mythology, the Narwhal carries with it surprisingly few myths of its own. As its Linnaean taxonomic binomial infers, Monodon Monoceros (one tooth, one horn) the narwhal was described by Europeans as…
Tag: arctic
Sedna, The Arctic, and Shell
Apropos of Shell poking around in the Arctic – and perhaps an explanation of their 2012 foibles it may be worthwhile to remember the Inuit Sea Goddess Sedna. There are quite a few versions of this story; certain key elements…
Some big things going on down below
Norway’s state owned petroleum company Statoil is installing “world’s biggest offshore machine” in the North Sea. It is a seafloor mounted compressor designed to pressurize low yielding oil and gas deposits to wring out more product. The premise of deploying…
The Effects of Oil and Gas Activities in the Arctic
I’ve just submitted our comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Supplemental Draft Environmental Impacts Statement (SDEIS) on the impacts of Oil and Gas operations in the Arctic. This is a “Supplemental” DEIS because it is built on a…
Arctic Soundscapes now on line!
After a pile of coding, and some deep generosity from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Chris Clark’s lab at Cornell, and the Macaulay Library we are finally launching our Arctic Soundscapes feature on the “Don’t be a Buckethead” website. We launched…
Ice Seal Vocalizations
The vocalizations of “ice seals”, a bearded seal in this case, use complex tones and wide ranges of frequencies. Yet some of the simpler sounds created by ships passing through their environment may have the effect of masking their communications…
Looking across the time horizon
It has been a quite few weeks since we’ve put out a bioacoustics newsletter. Like most public benefit organizations we end up taking a lot of time in fundraising during the end of the year. (Thank-you to all of our…
Eerie Arctic Recordings
We are honored to have live sound recordings of the Arctic provided by Chris Clark through Cornell’s Macaulay Library. We’ve been listening to these eerie recordings for weeks as they’re being processed. Once they’re all up we’ll invite you in…
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…
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,…