The soundscape of two deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites

Abstract

Hydrothermal vents are sea floor structures where geothermally heated seawater is discharged. The high-temperature, chemically rich environment is host to uniquely adapted marine life. Vent soundscapes may contain important bioacoustic cues as well as signals enabling passive acoustic monitoring of hydrothermal vent dynamics. Proposals for deep-sea mining of seafloor massive sulfides near hydrothermal vents have elicited concern over potential environmental impacts due to disturbance from industrial activity, including changes to the soundscape. This study assesses the baseline soundscape at two sites, the Main Endeavour Field on the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Lucky Strike vent field on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge over 12 months and 3 months respectively. To facilitate comparison with future studies at other sites, the most recently proposed standard soundscape analysis methodologies are employed, including terminology in alignment with ISO 18405:2017. In accordance with the latest soundscape standard literature, metrics quantifying the amplitude, impulsiveness, periodicity, and uniformity are reported. Spectral probability densities, percentiles, and long-term spectrograms are computed in hybrid millidecade frequency bands. Finally, a qualitative analysis is included to describe the source types contributing to the hydrothermal vent sound field.