The first step of offshore drilling is seismic airgun blasting to explore for oil and gas deposits beneath the seafloor. This produces noise pollution that is devastating to whales, dolphins, and other marine life.

It’s no secret that offshore oil and gas development is highly damaging to the environment and the many types of marine life that call the ocean home. From pollution from routine operations to catastrophic oil spills to climate change, offshore drilling causes harmful impacts to our ocean and coastal ecosystems — as well as the human communities that depend on them — through every stage of the process. But what many people don’t know is that the damage to our ocean begins well before any oil and gas drilling even occurs.

Seismic airgun blasting is used by the oil and gas industry to identify potential oil and gas deposits beneath the seafloor. To carry out these surveys, ships tow airgun arrays that emit thousands of high-decibel sound waves. These sounds can be upwards of 240 decibels or more, which is louder than a rock concert or a jet engine flying 100 feet overhead! Given the geographic scope of new offshore drilling proposed by the Trump administration, such surveys could cover millions of acres of ocean in the coming years.

The impact of such noise pollution in the ocean can be devastating to marine life. At close range, seismic airgun blasts can cause injury or death to animals such as whales, dolphins, fish, turtles, and invertebrates. Seismic surveys also displace and cause harm, such as temporary hearing loss, to a broad range of marine mammals, fish, and invertebrate populations. Seismic blasting is a major threat to our nation’s fisheries, as well. Fish flee the blasting zone to escape the noise, including commercially important species, resulting in immediate losses to the communities who depend on healthy fisheries.

But the impacts of seismic blasting don’t just occur at close range. The sounds generated from seismic surveys travel hundreds or even thousands of miles and disrupt the behavior of a broad range of marine species. Sound travels efficiently underwater – much better than light for example - and many animals in the ocean depend on sound for communication, feeding, migration, and mating activities. If we continue to saturate the underwater world with noise (already a huge problem as depicted in the film Sonic Sea) we will harm both individual species as well as the health of entire marine ecosystems.

Read the full article about seismic blasting by Pete Stauffer at Surfrider Foundation.