018 – Sound in the deep ocean with David Barclay

https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/018-sound

We think of the deep sea as an eerily quiet and spooky place but that isn’t completely true, animal communication, seismic activity, human noise and even the sound of rain and waves from 10 km above. We chat with undersea audio expert Dr David Barclay about the fascinating audio properties of the deep ocean. As we are talking audio data on an audio medium, lets have some fun with a game of ‘what can we grenad-hear’ where Thom tries to guess the deep-sea sound.

We also have deep-sea news: India are developing their own 6 km rated human occupied vehicle (Samudrayaan); genetics links deep-sea shrimp with their planktonic juvenile stages; the HACON project explores the Aurora black smoker field at 4000 m/13,000 ft under the Arctic; we also reveal that a mysterious squid-like creature, was, in fact, a squid.

We also discuss communication (through the medium of famous quotes). Are we losing the ability to actually engage and learn things from each other? Are we all just yelling at each other online from our respective teams? Not willing to really listen to the other side but rather ‘own them’ and drop the mic. In a pandemic of misinformation where a catchy meme can ruin, or even end, peoples lives do we have a duty to try to engage with people? What about the tole that takes on our own mental health?

Don Walsh drops by with some amazing stories from his sub commander days. A life entirely dependent on listening and being quiet. We then have a ‘tale from the high seas’ from Larkin to finish things up.

Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:

podcast@armatusoceanic.com

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Read the show notes and find out more about us at:

www.armatusoceanic.com

Glossary

CTD: Conductivity, temperature and depth sensor

Gametes: sex or germ cells. Eggs and sperm

Grenadier: another name for a rattail fish

Hydrothermal vent: seawater heated by the earth flows out of the seabed

Lander: Free-falling or pop-up vehicle. Sinks from the surface and comes up again by dropping ballast

Refraction: the change in direction of a wave passing from one medium to another

Sound channel: Also called the SOFAR channel, a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum

Links

Alan’s new hadal centre:

https://www.minderoo.org/deep-sea-research/

India’s deep sub:

https://www.wionews.com/india-news/samudrayaan-indias-first-manned-deep-sea-probe-to-travel-6-km-under-water-425414

Matching deep-sea shrimp with their pelagic larva:

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/13/10/457/htm

Giant squid like creature:

https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/viral-news-massive-squid-like-creature-larger-than-human-spotted-by-scientists-while-exploring-red-sea/822261

COP26 – Deep Sea World:

https://youtu.be/0oSpk1eSWMs

HACON project:

https://mashable.com/article/deep-sea-science-arctic

Forbes’ azotic theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azoic_hypothesis

David’s other podcast: Sciographie:

https://www.dal.ca/news/2020/09/11/scientists-tell-their-own-stories-on-third-season-of-sciographie.html

David’s research website:

https://noise.phys.ocean.dal.ca/deepoceannoise.html

Implosion in the Challenger Deep paper:

https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/34-2_loranger.pdf

Underwater noise during COVID-19:

https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/10.0001271

KM3Net: hunting for neutrinos in the deep sea:

https://www.km3net.org/

Credits

Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel

Logo image

David's lander in action