If your day is filled with the sounds of keyboards clacking, copy machines spitting out paper, or general incessant office noise, try tuning into the live sounds of Antarctica for a while. Whale songs, seal vocalizations, and the soaring, echoing crashes of the Ekstrom ice shelf calving into the sea are bound to transport you far from the stresses of cubicle life.
(link to the streaming .mp3 is above, and here)
This fabulous idea was conceived by researchers at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, who dangled two continuously-recording hydrophones beneath the 300 foot-thick ice back in 2005. The recording is beamed via wireless LAN to the German Neumayer base 9 miles away on the ice shelf, and then relayed via satellite to AWI in Germany where listeners can pick it up via the web.
By 2008 they had accumulated over 100,000 hours of data and positively identified killer whales, blue whales, fin whales, and minke whales along with Weddell seals, crabeater seals, Ross seals, and leopard seals. The hydrophones have also picked up recordings from creatures that the researchers can't identify. Cracking ice, calving, and even the sputter of lightning flashes from distant storms are also common guests on this awesome internet audio show.
One thing to watch out for: the hydrophones' sensitivity is pumped way up to pick up as much animal sound as possible. Ice breaking nearby might be *really* loud in your headphones (my experience was fine, but you never know). Also, there is some background static, and it might take a few minutes before you pick up any whale song. But be patient -- it's more than worth the wait.
Image: AWI
Tags: Acoustics, Animal Behavior, Animal Communication, Animal Research, Biodiversity
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