Title: Evaluating controls of acoustic noise propagation across the continental margin
Researchers: Eoghan Daly, Dr Martin White
The purpose of this project is to measure, quantify and model anthropogenic noise as it propagates across the Irish continental margin, between deep ocean and shelf seas. Anthropogenic noise is classed as pollution and under the terms of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Ireland is tasked with quantifying, monitoring and reporting this noise. While investigating underwater noise this project is focussing especially on pulsed noise sources generated by offshore seismic source exploration for hydrocarbons. Hypothesis: How does topography and water column structure affect the propagation of seismic source signals across the continental margin? The overall aims are to quantify the controls of underwater sound propagation, especially anthropogenically generated seismic source pulses and to model sound transmission loss across the Irish continental slope.
The project objectives are to evaluate the roles of (i) the seabed topography, especially the contrast between typical slope vs submarine canyons at the continental margin (ii) water column structure variability. Other objectives are to advance an existing 2D acoustic model for the porcupine basin and to investigate the feasibility of building a 3D acoustic model of seismic sourced noise in Irish waters.