Allure of Soundscapes
Captivated by the lil sound notes of music or the sound of wind gushing through these hilltop makes me augur to the possibility finding knowledge inside this trapped high and small notes.
I think listening to the sounds has been the most of my time, we do listen soundscapes of natures unknowingly or unknowingly or the frantic noise of our well civilised architecture, metro, bus. Meddled by this overwhelming scapes of sound there’s been slight development in using sound as a tool for understanding deep sea underwater life. Can sound help us understand those abyss of knowledge? help to save it?
It started with listening to the sounds of ocean waves
Listening to the sounds of singular waves of whales or clustering sounds of ships. Listening to the sounds of the sea may glean with knowledge of this alluring land of histories and biodiversity. In Japan, hydrothermal power plants whose metal encrusted pipe burbling magma have viscous muffled sound to the trained ears but for untrained it might be anything. Using hydrophones, an instrument used for listening to the sounds underwater may be the cheapest way of understanding biodiversity. But before some jumped on the idea of listening, the sound of a healthy ecosystem should be known before contrasting with others. Eavesdrop to the sound lurking through the bottom requires intimate knowledge and passion.
Above the water, we can see to the brink of the horizon but we can hear only nearby sounds of chirping birding or bickering neighbors but these rules changes when we shift to the underwater. Light holds power above the water but these reverses in the water where light can be easily absorbed and scattered by undergoing feels of 646, but listening to the sounds could open a portal to the unknown world of this abyss.
Researching at the great depths doesn’t come easy, I’m no expert but buying a pressurized robot or a robust camera which can capture in such shroud of darkness, expensive enough but dropping a hydrophone, bless the ears of researchers with the sounds of singular waves of whales, bickering noise of dolphins, chattering of fish, or the hums of the ocean, sometimes energy pulses from gas or oil floating industries. The allure of the sea is mesmerizing enough. Listening to the sounds of unscathed grounds makes you believe you standing on a hilltop of such great depths. If this seems abstract, there have been system acoustic research about such.
The chorus of mammals have been recorded but the noise of small creature is still unaccounted for, data from hydrophones are being poured each month bu the noise of these small creatures are shrouded by loud humming noise of ship trafficking making it much more difficult for such research cruise. Academia Sinica is developing a software algorithm to separate the elements of the soundscape into categories: biophony (creatures), geophony(weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions), and anthropology (peaks or insidious human noises, like seismic tests, ships, and mining ). Then the program will isolate individual sounds, such as dolphin whistles or chattering fish, and even could sounds of new species. Such hydrophones are inexpensive and you could drop a camera along with it if something bites.
Some researchers are working to improve current listening technology. At the woods hole oceanographic institution in Woods Hole, Mass, Ying-Tsong Lin is building a starfish-shaped contraption of hydrophones that can tune into certain sounds hundreds of miles away, like a telescope for sound.
But how fish make sounds? They rub their body parts like crickets. Air-filled bladder act as a drum to create sounds like creaks. Other organisms use sonic muscles to create amplified sounds. But detecting such low decibels sound requests the sophistication of technology and meticulous knowledge and patience. Because experiencing such a research cruise every day might give you a headache. But the sounds are more profound to overcome such physical demarcation in technology. It’s the peering of knowledge through sounds that makes it more alluring.
