title: Underwater noise emissions from a drillship in the Arctic.
abstract: Wideband sound recordings were made of underwater noise emitted by an active drillship, Stena Forth, working in 484 m of water in Baffin Bay, western Greenland. The recordings were obtained at thirty and one-hundred meters depth. Noise was recorded during both drilling and maintenance work at ranges from 500 m to 38 km. The emitted noise levels were highest during maintenance work with estimated source levels up to 190 dB re 1 μPa (rms), while the source level during drilling was 184 dB re 1 μPa (rms). There were spectral peaks discernible from the background noise to ranges of at least 38 km from the drillship with the main energy below 3 kHz. M-weighted sound pressure levels were virtually identical to broadband levels for low-frequency cetaceans and about 5 dB lower for high-frequency cetaceans. Signals from the dynamic positioning system were clearly detectable at ranges up to two km from the drillship.
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark. Electronic address: lky@dmu.dk.
authors.forename: Line A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Kyhn
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
authors.forename: Signe
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sveegaard
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tougaard
mesh_terms: D061006:Bays; D006116:Greenland; D006801:Humans; D009622:Noise; D000066388:Oil and Gas Industry / Q000379:methods*; D011312:Pressure; D013018:Sound Spectrography
keywords: Greenland; M-weighting; Marine mammals; Noise pollution; Oil and gas exploration; Transmission loss