umented abundant unknown biological sounds in deep sea canyons south of Georges Bank, on the commercial fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine, in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, in the estuaries of Cape Cod Massachusetts, including the docks of Woods Hole Massachusetts, and even on the docks of New York City in Manhattan. The latter two examples are notable in that the waters around Woods Hole, Massachusetts are among the most intensively studied areas in the world, yet passive acoustics has opened up a whole new area of discovery. Similarly, many people would be surprised to find that new frontiers in marine science can be found right off the docks of New York City, right in the heart of the industrial world. Most recently we have documented wide-
spread biological sounds in the ponds, lakes and river systems of New England. Most of these sounds have never been described and their sources are currently unknown. To me, that makes passive acoustics all the more exciting as new discoveries are made just about very time we lower a hydrophone into the water.
Acoustic Software Development
Although there is no doubt that passive acoustics will become increasingly important in the coming years, there are significant technological obstacles that have slowed the growth in the field. One of the most important obstacles currently limiting the application of passive acoustics in marine ecology and fisheries is a lack of specialized soft-
Figure 2. Simple portable fixed arrays might employ modular construction so that they can be combined into larger array configurations. The individual array components could be used for sounds with low detection ranges.
42 MTR
November/December 2008
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