In the summer of 1997, scientists recorded a strange, loud sound coming from an area west of the southern coast of Chile. They called him “Blob”.
While searching for underwater volcanoes, researchers’ hydrophones from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded a very loud, low-frequency sound. Underwater microphones, originally developed by the US Navy, were located in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 4,000 kilometers away. kilometers.
The sound, which lasted about a minute, was one of the loudest underwater sounds ever recorded. Below is a recording of this sound sped up 16 times:
Over the years, theories have multiplied about the origin of the mysterious sound from the ocean.
Some suspect it to be the sound of military exercises, ships, giant squids, blue whales, or an unknown sea creature. Finally people More than 80% have not yet been investigated. from the world’s oceans.
“We considered every possibility, including the sound of A sounding animal.
A humpback whale swims in Gerlach Fjord off the coast of Antarctica.
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Matthias Breiter / Design Pics RM / East News / East News
However, the question of where these loud noises came from remained unanswered for years.
It wasn’t until 2005, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began researching the Antarctic acoustics off the coast of South America, that scientists began to understand the origin of the “bloop.”
Robert Dziak, of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Laboratory, told Insider via email that in 2011 — after collecting all the data — the agency finally clarified the origin of the “bloop.”
The official opinion is that It was the sound of an ice earthquakeas a result of the rupture of the ice shelf, which broke off from the ice in Antarctica.
“Ice-cracking and crackling are the main source of natural sounds in the Southern Ocean,” Dziak told Wired in 2012. – Every year there are tens of thousands of what we call “ice quakes” caused by the breaking and melting of sea ice and the splitting of glaciers. Pieces of ice fall into the ocean, and the accompanying sounds are very similar to the word “bloop”.
A cracked glacier in Disko Bay, Greenland, June 2022.
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Odd Andersen/AFP/East News/East News
The icebergs that were the source of the “blob” were most likely located between Antarctica’s Bransfield Strait and the Ross Sea, i.e. Cape Adare, according to NOAA.
Icequakes occur when glaciers break open in the ocean and the ice collapses. Sudden cracking causes a loud crack or clatter. NOAA warns that as the climate changes, ice quakes will become more frequent.
Under the influence of global warming, glaciers melt, water is formed that can freeze again, and this causes ice earthquakes.
Above is a translation of the article from the US edition of Insider.
Translation: Dorothy Salus
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