Some environmentalist campaigns claimed (now regarding the Sardinian offshore in Italy; in 2013 the eastern coast of USA Delaware-Florida area and so on) the high environmental impact on marine fauna and ecosystem of the airgun technology due to the exposition of fish and marine fauna to prolonged acoustic signals with high power. Reading on scientific papers this technology has a relative low impact in terms of fish mortality if I read correctly. On the other hand some doubt arises about the response of behaviour of marine mammals like whales, dolphins and cetaceans (i.e. beaching , worsening in reproduction). How we can demonstrate the environmental sustainability of this technology. I read some guidelines which includes a protocol about Marine Mammal Observers (MMO), Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), operative distance from marine mammals of about 500 m. etc.. In my opinion the information in internet are partially not correct and should be filtered in mediatic sense; it is wrote that the airgun source is similar to an earthquake, perhaps it could be a right analogy, but is a form of disinformative message.
Probably in future we will can not acquire geoelectrical data for the earthworms and ants mortality and so on. The geophysical prospecting by definition has an environmental impact. I believe and I try in my work to respect all living thing. Stop the geophysics?
As geophysicist I think that probably we should spend more effort to enhance the acceptance of the geophysical tecnologies, conversely we will be seen as suspects of a crime against the nature (at the same level of the poachers for the marine airgun technology or others).
Are geophysical technologies not acceptable in terms of progress not only the economic, but also of the knowledge? There are alternatives?
Have you news and/or data about, or you know guidelines, there is an official position of the geophysical community about this question?
All comments are welcome.
Dear Roberto,
you touched a important point. Things are changing, even if not everywhere and for everycase. I think we Geophysicists have to be the first to encourage environment impact minimization when proposing a survey.
Offshore, when required, a seismic survey has mammal observers on-board, and a procedure of slowing starting up of the operation is applied, in order to let the possible marine mammals to swim away from the operation area. OGS-Explora did it in a couple of occasions, but not everywhere it is required and done, unfortunately.
On Svalbard islands, where 65% of the land area is protected, and strict regulations are applied, on-land geophysics is possible, but till the snow still coverages (and protects) the underlying ground, or where the impact of the survey is limited. You should reposition every stone you move, or at least, be sure that when you leave the camp, no trace is left behind you.
Apart this, here below you find and example of the Australian (Australia as a first applied the procedure for mammal protection offshore) procedure to minimize the impact of geophysical operations on the environment and cultural Heritage.
http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/27398/cooper_basin_geophysical_operations_eir.pdf
I think it can be a good example of how to begin to write guidelines for environmental impact minimization and remediation, and that ...we should do it.
Dear Roberto,
I think the most important issue is to inform and quantify the impact of marine seismic sources on the environment as precisely as possible. In a recent article series, I and Lasse Amundsen focused on the impact of air gun sources on marine life. I can send you a pdf-version of this articles that were published in GeoExpro (I enclose the first of 13 articles in this response). In my reserach I have recently published some papers related to the high frequency signals generated by air gun arrays (you can find some of these papers on researchgate.
Regards
Martin Landrø, NTNU, Norway
Roberto,
Surely we need to minimise our impact. I think the UK's JNCC guidelines aren't a bad place to start.
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/JNCC_Guidelines_Seismic%20Guidelines_Aug%202010.pdf
Then of course we can try and look at seasonality - though of course there is always a trade regarding operable weather.
Matt
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