White House approves sonic cannons for Atlantic energy exploration

[kelemvor]

White House approves sonic cannons for Atlantic energy exploration | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour

Sonic cannons, which fire sound waves 100 times louder than a jet engine, pose dangers for marine life that communicate by sound. Whales and dolphins, for example, depend on echolocation to feed and communicate with their family groups.
“We don’t know what the physiological effects are,” said Grant Gilmore, fish ecology expert in Vero Beach, Fla. “It could be permanent hearing damage in many of these creatures just by one encounter with a high-energy signal.”
The decision cleared the outer continental shelf from Delaware to Florida for exploration by energy companies. This is the first time that the U.S. Atlantic coast will be open to oil and gas exploration since the 1980s.

Doesn't the government have some kind of responsibility to figure out stuff like this BEFORE approving it? I'm no expert but it seems like something 100 times louder than a jet could be closer to deadly than merely deafening, right?

 

[drrich2]

It's more concerning yet because sound travels so fast & well in water. I wonder what duration the sound is transmitted, and over how large an area? These factors are important, too.

Richard.

 

[NAM001]

I would guress that it would be low frequency. I would also guess longer duratinon. I say this because the oil folks did some thig like that where i live. they brought a shaker truck to the neighborhood. the truck has a giant foot that plants on the ground and a hydrolic powered resonator that goes to work and shakes the ground. for miles around there are sonic receivers planted to pick up the data for analysis. for decades there have ben sonic expliration going on. Steel cyendars with electrodes in them. raise voltae till they arc adn that arc resonates the drum and avcts as a transmitter. very short in duration and sounds like a pile driver. perhaps they are looking for oil of forms other than blatent bodies of liquid oil.