The weather, ice, and animal categories are self-explanatory. But the geophysical category refers to events like underwater volcanic eruptions or earthquakes, while the anthropogenic category has to do with sounds made by ships and other human creations.
In Dziak’s words, “Anything else is usually just some kind of electronic interference with the signal.”
The search was on
But since it was unclear which category the “bloop” fit into (if any), PMEL researchers set up more hydrophones in the region it was first detected.
According to the NOAA, those devices weren’t intended to find the source of the sound so much as to study the sounds of underwater volcanos and earthquakes.
Closer to the truth
But the closer those hydrophones were placed to Antarctica, the closer researchers came to discovering the true answer to the “bloop.”
And in 2005, the biggest clue to that answer finally came.
Listening closely
As Dziak told Wired, researchers were particularly interested in the data they recorded from the Bransfield Strait and the Drake Passage.
Both of these water bodies are near Antarctica’s northwesternmost peninsula, and their sounds were subject to what Dziak called an “acoustic survey.”
A perfect match
The NOAA’s acoustic survey went from 2005 to 2010, and by the time it was concluded, researchers were confident they had heard the same sounds that confounded the world in 1997.
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