Abstract:

This dataset contains acoustic ambient noise from five locations in the Gulf of Mexico. These detections are given by site and monthly average of noise spectral level. Passive acoustic monitoring was conducted with High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages. These data were calibrated and then converted to average spectral data as a monthly time series. Data were collected from May 2010 to September 2013.

Suggested Citation:

Hildebrand, John. 2016. Ambient Noise in the Gulf of Mexico, 2010-2013. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/N7WQ01R0

Publications:

Wiggins, S. M., Hall, J. M., Thayre, B. J., & Hildebrand, J. A. (2016). Gulf of Mexico low-frequency ocean soundscape impacted by airguns. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 140(1), 176–183. doi:10.1121/1.4955300

Purpose:

This dataset was developed to assess the ambient noise in the Gulf of Mexico during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Data Parameters and Units:

Five separate xlsx files, one for each site labeled by site name: GC, MC, DT, MP, DC In each file is one spreadsheet. The first column is frequency in Hertz [Hz], and the first row is date of daily average in MM/DD/YYYY format. The remaining cells are sound pressure spectrum levels in 1 Hz bins in units [dB re 1 uPa^2/Hz], corresponding to the frequency column and date row. Below is a list of station names, abbreviations, and coordinates (lat, lon) for each of the sampling sites: Green Canyon site, GC, 27.55783, -91.16683; Mississippi Canyon site, MC, 28.84500, -88.46567; Dry Tortugas site, DT, 25.53183, -84.63750; Main Pass site, MP, 29.25333, -88.29583; DeSoto Canyon site, DC, 29.05317, -86.09417;

Individual Files: