Life for Whales, dolphins and other marine mammals is dominated by sound. They depend on sound to hunt for food, detect predators and to survive. In water, sound travels five times faster, and many times farther than it does in air. Undersea noise pollution is invisible but it is damaging ocean life.
The leading contributors to ocean noise are from Shipping, Seismic, and Sonar. Shipping: At any given time, there are up to sixty thousand commercial ships traversing our seas worldwide. Cavitation from propellers and the rumble of engines reverberate through every corner of the ocean. Seismic: To detect oil and gas deposits beneath the ocean floor, the petrochemical industry uses seismic airguns, the modern form of exploratory dynamite. Ships tow arrays of these guns, discharging extremely intense pulses of sound toward the sea floor. During seismic surveys, acoustic explosions continue for days or weeks on end. Sonar: Sonar is the principal submarine detection system used by navies of the world. To detect targets, naval warships generate extremely loud waves of sound that sweep the ocean.