Sound Blasting Marine Animals

Faced with its biggest energy challenge in more than 20 years, the United States is poised to look for offshore reserves of oil and natural gas as never before... The prospect of drilling off the coasts of tourist havens, such as California and Florida, has stirred the most vocal opposition to the new survey, contained in the energy legislation passed last week.

While most opposition centers around the potential ramifications of the survey, environmentalists are sounding an alarm over the seismic survey itself. A typical seismic air gun array pulled by a ship might fire its compressed air bubbles into the ocean five or six times a minute - more than 7,000 shots in 24 hours. Some researchers worry such testing would pummel sea creatures with a barrage of sound pulses 200 decibels and higher - equivalent on land to listening to an artillery gun being fired 500 feet away.

Thanks to Chris Steins