Characteristics of marine seismic survey sounds in the Beaufort Sea

Geophysical survey vessels emit very intense pulses of underwater sound at intervals of several seconds; these noise pulses are sometimes detectable at very long ranges. Sound pulses from geophysical surveys were recorded in shallow parts of the Beaufort Sea during August and September of 1980–1984. Hydrophones deployed from a quiet boat were the primary sensors, but aircraft‐deployed sonobuoys were also used. Water depths for the boat‐recorded data were 9–130 m, but mostly 4 km, best‐fit equations for maximum (rms) received levels in dB generally were obtained by assuming cylindrical spreading [−10*log(range)] and a term linear in range corresponding to an absorption loss or scattering term. The coefficients of the linear term va...