The Strait of Georgia is one of the busiest in-land shipping lanes in the world. In addition to ferries and pleasure craft, the water way is used extensively for freighter transportation, barge traffic, and fishing. In this gallery, we have identified a selection of typical recordings of the vessels heard throughout the Strait. Deep sea freighters will typically have a lower frequency component, while faster more agile vessels can be identified by higher frequency engine noise and shorter duration passage.
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Use of Data Products must reference VENUS
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Audio recording made on February 12, 2012 at 08:14:09 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using an icListen Low Frequency Hydrophone. |
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Audio recording made on February 15, 2012 at 13:40:06 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using an icListen Low Frequency Hydrophone. |
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Audio recording made on September 28, 2009 at 04:09:14 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #3 (Reson). The full 5 minute audio track starts off quietly, but as a ship approaches the engine noise increases. The spectrogram shows the classic interference pattern known as Lloyds Mirror, where by the direct and surface reflected sound paths interfere as the source traverses overhead. |
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Audio recording made on September 29, 2009 at 02:11:06 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This ship has a distinctive “whine” associated with it’s engine, that is clearly audible and shows up in the spectrogram as distinct harmonic lines. Note that at 1:30 into the recording the engine revs up and the pitch of the whine changes. |
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Audio recording made on October 11, 2009 at 23:09:51 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). A boat passes overhead of the array. This engine has higher frequency content that the deep sea freighters and passes relatively quickly. |
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Audio recording made on October 12, 2009 at 10:35:50 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). A distant vessels engine is recorded. The engine has a periodic whine. |
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Audio recording made on October 12, 2009 at 20:52:13 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This recording picks up a number of classic boat engine sounds. There is the rumble of the engine, a periodic rubbing sound, a higher-pitched whine, and occasionally the sound of a winch winding up and down through various harmonics. This is what whales put up with most of the time. |
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Audio recording made on January 5, 2010 at 17:47:59 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This is a typical recording of the passage of a deep sea freighter. On most days, there is at least one such vessel passing overhead of the array nearly every hour. |
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Audio recording made on January 5, 2010 at 18:38:57 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This is a typical recording of the passage of a deep sea freighter, less than one hour after that shown above. This 5 minute recording only captures the approach. The passage took over 10 minutes and at a speed of 20 knots, this means that we’re clearly picking up vessels from over 3 kilometres away. Whales too are then hearing any deep sea vessel at ranges of 3-5 kilometres, which doesn’t give them much quiet haven in such a busy waterway. |
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Audio recording made on January 6, 2010 at 01:16:40 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). Another typical recording of the passage of a deep sea freighter. Audible over kilometres away and for 15 minutes, there would be no ability for marine mammals to avoid or seek refuge from this noise. |
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Audio recording made on April 28, 2010 at 22:00:18 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This recording starts off relatively quietly, prior to the passage of a vessel. Sound in the ocean refracts in complex ways as it travels through water of different temperature, salinity, and pressure. Distant sounds are split into rays propagating along different paths. The spectrogram view of various distant sources reveal ghostly patterns in frequency and time. The frequency shifts revealed as the vessel passes are phenomena know as Lloyd’s Mirror. |
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Audio recording made on May 1, 2010 at 20:11:19 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This is a typical recording of the passage of a deep sea freighter. A periodic echo-sounder causes the hydrophone system to pulse it’s automatic variable gain a few times during this recording. On most days, there is at least one such vessel passing overhead of the array nearly every hour. |
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Audio recording made on January 7, 2010 at 03:55:35 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). The audio recording made by the Burns hydrophone is shown with the 44kHz digitized trace above and the corresponding spectrogram below. |
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Audio recording made on January 7, 2010 at 03:55:35 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #3 (Reson). The spectrogram was calculated from the audio signal recorded by the Reson hydrophone, sampling at 100kHz. The engine noise is seen to include very high frequency content (25-50kHz), well above the human audible limit of 20kHz. |
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Audio recording made on October 12, 2009 at 08:16:39 UTC in the Strait of Georgia at the East Hydrophone site (170m depth) using Array 02 and Hydrophone #2 (Burns). This two minute recording detects the very low frequency sound of a distance deep sea freighter. Low frequency sound travels great distances within the ocean, often tens, even hundreds of kilometres. |
