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02/18/2025
Scientists expecting silence at the bottom of the ocean got a notable surprise.
Researchers dropped a hydrophone into the Mariana Trench. Instead of eerie stillness, the recordings captured a symphony of clearly discernable sounds, including earthquakes, passing ships, and even the distant calls of baleen whales.
The most dramatic audio came from a Category 4 typhoon raging above, proving that even miles below the surface, the ocean is anything but quiet. This unexpected discovery challenges the assumption that the deep sea is a tranquil refuge, revealing a bustling underwater world filled with both natural and human-made noise.
The experiment, conducted by NOAA and Oregon State University, required a specially designed hydrophone to withstand the immense pressure of Challenger Deep, the trench’s deepest point at 36,000 feet — and the deepest part of the Ocean.
When it was finally lowered, NOAA says, the ceramic hydrophone had to enter the depths at a relatively slow pace — 5 meters per second — to prevent it from imploding.
Learn more: https://news.oregonstate.edu/news/new-complex-call-recorded-mariana-trench-believed-be-baleen-whale
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