Estimation of the source signal characteristics and variability of blue whale calls using a towed array

Abstract

A four-day experiment was conducted to study the feasibility of locating, tracking, and counting blue whales acoustically in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) at long ranges using the shore-based NPS Ocean Acoustic Observatory (OAO) hydrophone array. In concert with the shore-based acoustic monitoring, an aircraft was assigned to locate whales and a research vessel was manned with observers and instrumented with a towed hydrophone array to determine whale locations and characterize their vocalizations in the near- field. Two transiting blue whales were observed and their vocalizations were recorded by the towed array in close proximity. In this thesis research, these towed array data were deverberated using modeled-based matched signal processing and least-squares fitting