Marine

Monitoring the Effect of Noise on Marine Environments

March 26, 2018 by Marine Directorate Communications No Comments | Category Marine Directorate general, Marine Directorate Science, Marine Directorate Surveys, Research Vessel Surveys

Survey: 0418A

Duration: 25 March – 11 April 2018

Gear:

• Subsurface passive acoustic moorings (incl. cetacean detectors and sound recorders);
• Subsurface VEMCO VR2 salmon tag detector moorings; and
• Subsurface Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) mooring.

Objectives:

1. To deploy 95 moorings with VR2 salmon detectors between Ythan Estuary and Findon Ness (‘outer array’ shown on Figure 1).
2. To deploy 40 moorings with VR2 salmon detectors between River Don mouth and Nigg Bay (‘inner array’ shown on Figure 1).
3. To deploy one ADCP in Aberdeen Bay (in association with the ‘outer array’ of salmon detectors).
4. To deploy 30 moorings at ECOMMAS marine mammal/noise monitoring locations (20 with C-PODs cetacean click detectors; 10 with C-PODs and SM2M sound recorders; Figure 2).
5. To recover two ECOMMAS moorings at Helmsdale 15 and Arbroath 10 sites that were deployed in November 2017.
6. To deploy a mooring with C-POD and sound recorder at an offshore noise monitoring location (as part of the JOMOPANS project).

Figure 1 (above): Locations of the salmon detector moorings to be deployed on this 0418A. A table of locations will be supplied separately. Locations marked in blue are the ‘outer array’; the ‘inner array’ are marked in red.

Figure 2 (below): Locations of the ECOMMAS and JOMOPANS moorings deployed on this trip. Locations are detailed in Table 1 below.

Preliminary Itinerary:

• 22/3: load half of ‘outer array’ moorings and ADCP in Fraserburgh.
• *25/3: sail south from Fraserburgh, deploy ADCP, deploy ‘outer array’.
• *26/3: reload 2nd batch ‘outer array’ moorings, deploy ‘outer array’.
• *27/3: load ‘inner array’ moorings, deploy ‘inner array’ load ECOMMAS moorings.
• End of March: deploy east coast ECOMMAS moorings (St Abbs – Cruden Bay).
• Early April: deploy Moray Firth ECOMMAS moorings (Fraserburgh – Latheron) and JOMOPANS mooring.

*N.B. timings may vary with weather and deployment progress.

Table 1 (below): ID, name and geographic position of all 30 ECOMMAS and JOMOPANS moorings to be deployed during 0418A. All moorings are to be subsurface for either acoustic release (AR) or ROV recovery.

Further Information:

• Previous ECOMMAS Blog Posts
• 2018 Alba na Mara Blog Posts
• Joint Monitoring Programme for Ambient Noise North Sea (JOMOPANS)
• BBC article on underwater noise monitoring

Tags: Alba na Mara, cetacean, ECOMMAS, Findon Ness, JOMOPANS, marine mammal, moorings, Nigg Bay, research, Salmon, Ythan Estuary

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