AUGUST 26 to September 11 RV Langseth MMO cruise: MMO observation during geophysical research

On August 26 the Ocean Botoom Seismometer (OBS) drops were completed and we commenced our full visual and acoustic monitoring. We had a final meeting with the PIs and techs to ensure everybody was clear on how the mitigation measures were to be implemented. Prior to turning on the airguns two of the MMOs did their visual watch using the Big Eyes, small binoculars and naked eye for 60 minutes and one of us listened acoustically for marine mammals at the PAM station. After completing the 60 minute watch without a sighting the techs began to ramp up the guns (gradually increase the airgun sound level over ~35 minutes).

The safety zone for this survey was very large (7.7 km) so while the airguns were firing our visual watches consisted of rotation between Big Eyes and naked eye/small binoculars every 15 minutes to ensure we didn’t tire from constantly looking through binoculars. We also utilized a PAM (Passive Acoustic Monitoring) system (CIBRA Workstation) to acoustically detect marine mammals. We listened for marine mammal calls and kept watch for those out of our hearing range using the PAM monitor at the PAM station, which shows the sound spectrograph, in the main lab. Once the guns were at the full sound level we did not need to clear the area again, unless they were shut down due to a marine mammal sighting or they were turned off for more than 9 minutes i.e. for maintenance, but we maintained watch of the area to ensure no marine mammals entered the safety zone. Our full watches consisted of 9 hours of visual and PAM spread throughout the day which meant we spent a lot of time running up and down between the tower and the main lab. To entertain myself when I wasn’t on watch I usually checked my email on the very slow internet connection, read or watched a movie in the ship’s theatre.

One of a pair of hitchiking wrens who appear to have come offshore with us from the coast

The deck crew busy cleaning around the stacks in rolling seas!

John and Meghan on visual watch

Joe on visual watch

The sunsets were beautiful when the fog and clouds cleared!

Moonrise at Endeavour MPA

And another beautiful sunset!

The MMO tower at sunset

The Big Eyes...at sunset!

Fortunately for the science crew we didn’t need to shut down the airguns due to sightings; the guns functioned well throughout the survey and we had no marine mammal sightings. This was good because it meant that no marine mammals were likely within range of the 160 dB zone of the airguns but it is possible that our lack of sightings was also due to behavioural avoidance of the area (paper on impacts of anthropogenic noise). In addition to following mitigation measures set by both the Canadian and US government August and September were chosen as survey months because it is the time of year endangered species, such as the Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), would be least likely to occur in the area. In fact, one of the science techs with Scripps showed me some interesting data. Normally, he extracts whale calls from hydrophone recordings of the area, from the NEPTUNE project, to hear earthquakes but decided to do the opposite and remove earthquake sounds to listen for whale calls. From that data he has found that blue and fin whale calls in the area occur from October through the winter; which means it was very unlikely there were Endangered blue whales or Threatened fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) around the MPA during the survey.


Although we had no marine mammal sighting during the survey we did have some sightings of other wildlife; we saw a few more sunfish (Mola mola), on a couple of the calmer days we could see Blue sharks (Prinocae glauca) swimming underwater or at the surface near the ship and a Peregrin Falcon (Peregrinus falco) stayed around the ship for a day. We even saw it attack and kill another bird, which we think was a petrel, and eat it while in flight around the ship!

Above 4 photos: we were lucky to have a juvenile peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) join the ship for a day...which made things more interesting for us in the MMO tower!

John and Megan on the old heli-deck. The airgun array can be seen being towed behind the ship.

Above 4 photos: our Peregrine friend caught another bird a ways out from the ship and proceeded to circle us while eating it in flight!

What else is there to say...the beautiful moon

Another beautiful sunset

drifing Bull Kelp (Nereocystic lutkeana)

Above 3 photos: on a rare flat calm day we had a few Blue sharks (Prinocae glauca) swimming at the surface near the ship

During survey time the crew and science techs were also lucky enough to learn more about the research being conducted by the PIs and each of them gave us a talk about their research  (info on Doug Toomey’s research, info on William Wilcock’s research).

From William Wilcock’s website (see link above) this survey was designed to:
“...image the 3-D seismic structure of the crust and topmost mantle along an 80-km-long section of the Endeavour ridge. The experiment will image four targets: (1) crustal thickness variations within 25 km of the axial high (0 to 900 kyr); (2) the 2-D (i.e., map view) structure of the uppermost mantle beneath the spreading axis; (3) the 3-D structure of the crustal magmatic system and (4) the detailed 3-D, shallow crustal thermal structure beneath the Endeavour vent field. The results of imaging will define the recent history of magma supply, the pattern of melt delivery from the mantle to the crust and the structure and segmentation of the subseafloor magmatic and hydrothermal systems.”

AUGUST 22 to 25 RV Langseth MMO cruise: Transit to Endeavour and OBS drops

We left port the morning of August 22 heading down the Columbia River and then out to sea. It took a day to transit to the site during which time we had a sighting of some short-finned pilot whales, (Globicephalus macrorhynchus) which I missed because I wasn’t on watch, and some Pacific White Sided Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens).

Above 2 photos: heading to sea down the Columbia River

During our day of transit I helped with some work on the streamer deck, we had an emergency/lifeboat drill, and then the MMOs had an afternoon meeting. Fortunately, I felt pretty good most of the day because I was on deck but during the MMO meeting in the mess I started to feel a little queasy with the smells of the food, looking at computer screens and not seeing the horizon. I was fine during the meeting but when I went down to my cabin, which was small, at the bow and had no porthole, suddenly I was sick! I was lucky though because quite a few of the science crew were already in their bunks with seasickness. After dealing with my first bout of seasickness I made myself go to the mess for dinner and then afterwards, because I was still feeling poor, I sat on deck for a while. Unfortunately, as soon as I went back to my cabin I was sick again! I went to bed at 6:30 and slept through until the next morning.

Releasing the Scripps L-CHEAPO Ocean Bottom Seismometers

Once we arrived on site the Woods Hole and Scripps science crew did release tests on the OBSs (Ocean Bottom Seismometers), which record the seismic data, to ensure that after they were dropped to the seafloor they would later return to the surface when signalled to. After completion of the release tests we spent the next four days dropping the OBSs in various locations around the site. During this time we started our visual rotations and attended the daily meetings with the science crew to discuss and finalize the mitigation measures before the airguns would be turned on. Due to poor sea states, which were mostly between Beaufort 4 and 6, we spent most of this time on the bridge and not on the MMO tower. An exciting sighting for me was a sea spout. I had seen what appeared to be a blow on the horizon but it didn’t look right to be a whale blow; as the ship drew closer and upon better inspection we realized it was a small sea spout! I was quite excited as it was my first seaspout sighting. We got pretty close to it but it dissipated just as it was coming along our port side.

Above 2 photos: Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) at the study site: Endeavour MPA

August 25 was our last day of OBS deployments and the night before was one of the roughest nights we had during the survey. That morning I woke about every fifteen minutes to the sound of things crashing around the boat. My cabin is at the bow of the boat so every time we went over a big swell I felt the bow drop and my bed come out from under me! Fortunately, the next morning the seas came down quite a bit and we were able to start doing our watches from the MMO tower and we finally had a sighting; one of the MMOs spotted the group of Pacific White Sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) crossing the bow of the ship. We also saw Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) which was also an interesting sighting for me as the first and only time I’ve seen Mola was in 2005 when I was helping on a survey off the coast of Spain in the Straits of Gibraltar.

Above 2 photos: The MMO tower with our 'office'

AUGUST 19 to 21 RV Langseth MMO role for geophysical survey: pre-departure

On August 18, 2009 I departed Victoria to work as a marine mammal observer (MMO) for seismic mitigation on a geophysical survey. Scientists from the University of Oregon and University of Washington were planning to do seismic surveys to obtain images of the 3-D seismic structure of the crust and topmost mantle along an 80 km long section of the Endeavour ridge (in the Endeavour Marine Protected Area). There was opposition to the survey as the research would involve the use of seismic sound within the marine protected area but attempts to halt the survey in court in Ottawa did not go through (see Further Reading below for media and other info).

So how did I end up working as MMO for this controversial survey?

During my time on the DFO marine mammal cruise on the CCGS Tully (see posts for July 23 -31, 2009) I was asked if I would be the Canadian MMO for the survey; the US based ship was working in a Canadian Marine Protected Area so DFO wanted a Canadian MMO onboard. I would be working with five other marine mammal observers and our job was to ensure no marine mammals were in the designated exclusion zones, based on received sound levels at specified distances called isopleths, before the seismic airguns were turned on and to ensure none entered the zone while the airguns were firing. For example, this survey would utilize a 7.7 km safety zone (based on a 160 dB isopleth) around the ship for SARA listed species such as the blue whale (most seismic mitigation follows a 500 m safety zone for specified species!). As well, many of these species would not be utilizing these waters at this time of the year as many species of concern are foraging in cold, productive Arctic waters; one of the main deciding factors for the timing of such surveys.

The six of us would be doing visual observations using Big Eye binoculars (25 x 150) to cover the large zone and smaller binoculars (7x50) and naked eye to monitor waters near the ship during all daylight hours. We would also be working in shifts listening to the passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) station 24 hours a day. The group of MMOs would consist of a marine mammal scientist who’d spent 36 years implementing and running marine mammal surveys for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), two MMOs each with many years of marine mammal mitigation experience around the world, a bio-acoustician and MMO who would be in charge of ensuring the PAM was operational during the entire survey and a National Marine Fisheries certified marine mammal observer. Prior to our departure we had daily meetings with the chief scientists, techs on the ship and the office of marine operations at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory to ensure we would be implementing the correct procedures for marine mammal (and sea turtle) mitigation during this survey (to really understand how the mitigation is implemented check out this document *see note below)

Departing Victoria Harbour on a sunny day on the Clipper, HMCS Malahat with Olympic Mountains, WA in the background

Above 2 photos: the RV Langseth...Columbia University's NSF funded geophysical research ship and my home for the next month. The MMO tower, which has two mounted Big Eye binoculars can be seen located mid-ships and is about 19 meters above sea level (an important number to know for calculating distance of sightings from the ship!)

Hydrophone streamers on deck

The streamer deck

View of the MMO tower from the ex-heli deck

Looking down from the stern of the ship

Further Reading

Statement of Canadian Practice

Endeavour/Toomey Environmental Assessment report*

Endeavour/Toomey IHA document

NOAA fisheries Ocean Acoustics program

Acoustic Ecology Institute blog entries August 17 and 27

CTV news report

Vancouver Sun report

CBC news report

*While reading an IHA it is important to keep in mind that a 'take' means that either of two levels of 'harassment' occurs i.e. the animals are not literally 'taken". For example, the IHA may allow the survey to have 6 'takes' of Humpback whales which means that it is anticipated, based on estimates of species density for the area, that up to 6 humpback whales could be exposed to sound levels greater than 160 dB over the course of the survey. As well, individuals and species react differently; some may avoid the ship, some may not change their behaviour at all or some may approach the ship. Additionally, there are many variables beyond the presence or absence of seismic operation to be considered durings such interactions . 'Takes' are considerd to occur at two levels:

The MMPA defines "Harassment as: any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance which

(i) has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in thewild [``Level A harassment'']; or

(ii) has the potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to,migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering[``Level B harassment''].

Also, many other activities have required application to NOAA for IHA including: other types of research, including marine mammal research such as photo-ID and biopsy, dredging operations, wildlife service watercraft use in Manatee sensitive areas, explosive removal of offshore structures and wind energy facilities.