Sounds in the Ocean: Environmental and Anthropogenic
Listen to exemplar sound clips of marine sounds, taken from passive acoustic recorders. We have compiled these sounds to provide examples of the variety and breadth of natural and man-made sounds.
Introduction
Underwater sounds provide information about the surrounding environment—or soundscape—such as what marine animals are present or what human activities are taking place. Many marine animals rely on sound for survival. They depend on unique adaptations to communicate, locate food, navigate underwater, and/or understand their environment. Sounds are particularly useful for communication because they can be used to convey a great deal of information quickly and over long distances. Changes in the rate, pitch, and/or structure of sounds communicate different messages.
Passive Acoustic recorders can be towed behind a ship, mounted on mobile ocean-going robots, or placed at specific underwater sites and left out for days, months, or even years, capturing that location’s soundscape until the recorder is retrieved. Scientists in the Northeast's Passive Acoustic Research Group and their colleagues have compiled these sounds to provide examples of the variety and breadth of animal sounds.
Note: You can click on any of the photos and spectrograms on this page to view and/or save the full image. Some sounds (in particular from mysticetes/baleen whales) are very low frequency, and you may need high-quality speakers to hear the recording.
How to Read a Spectrogram
A spectrogram is a visual way to display sound. The frequency of the sound is labeled on the vertical or y-axis. Frequency is most often measured in hertz (Hz) or kilohertz (kHz). Time is shown along the bottom of the graph (the x-axis). Time here is measured in minutes and seconds, in the format mm:ss. The loudness of a sound can be seen by the color scale of the sound in the spectrogram, with lighter colors implying louder sounds.
Environmental Sounds
Summary: Many environmental events make non-biological sounds, such as the low-frequency rumbling of a thunderstorm or the cracking and wailing of singing ice as ice sheets slide against each other and break apart.
Earthquake
Ice Calving
Ice Singing
Quiet Ocean
Rain
Soundscape
Thunderstorm
Anthropogenic (Human-Made) Sounds
Summary: Human activity in and around the ocean makes a variety of sounds, such as pinging from echosounders or low-frequency vessel noise from motorized boats and ships. Some anthropogenic sounds can be disruptive or harmful to marine life.
Echosounder
Pile Driving (Offshore Wind Energy Construction)
Seismic (Oil & Gas)
Small Vessel
Large Vessel
Citation Examples
How to Credit a File From This Page
Sound File Citation
- (Government Agency)
- (Group/Organization)
- (Collection/Publication Date)
- (Title of Sound File)
- (Website URL)
Example:
NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. Passive Acoustics Group. 2021. Stfr_Multisound_NOAA_PAGroup_01. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/science-data/sounds-ocean
Image/Spectrogram Citation
- (Government Agency)
- (Group/Organization)
- (Lower Levels of Credit, if known)
- (Collection/Publication Date)
- (Title of Sound File)
- (Website URL)
Example:
NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. Passive Acoustics Group. 2021. Dele_NOAA_04. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/science-data/sounds-ocean