There’s so much we still don’t know about whales. Here’s 3 amazing new things we’ve learnt about whales lately: how humpback whales have sex and give birth – and how baleen whales sing underwater.
Australian navy divers have suffered minor injuries from a sonar pulse by a Chinese navy vessel. Here’s what that means and how underwater sound can hurt divers.
[author: Kim Beane]
Unlike light, noise is a long distance traveler and can go astonishing distances through the water. In 1943, the sound fixing and ranging (SOFAR) channel, a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum, was discovered. The SOFAR channel was capable of transmitting low-frequency, long-wavelength sound waves produced by an explosion near the Bahama Islands to receivers stationed near the coast of Africa. Sound waves in the narrow SOFAR channel that are traveling at minimum velocity can go as far as 15,000 miles or more. Unfortunately for those that live in the ocean, this means their world has become loud – very loud.