Sercel, a unit of seismc survey major CGG, has launched QuietSea, which is a passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) system designed to detect the presence of marine mammals during seismic operations.
The company says it is “totally different” from other commercially available PAM systems. It claims the system is “set to revolutionise” PAM within the seismic industry.
Unlike other separate antenna PAM systems, QuietSea is seamlessly integrated as an add-on within the Sercel Sentinel seismic streamer (Sentinel, Sentinel RD and Sentinel MS) towed in arrays by many survey vessels.
This allows for greatly enhanced marine mammal detection capabilities in a wide frequency listening range that covers a large variety of vocalising cetacean species.
There are considerable and growing sensitivities regarding the impacts of seismic survey operations on cetaceans and fish stocks. And the offshore industry has to toe the line regarding protocols which are becoming progressively tougher.
Sercel says that, while enabling marine seismic contractors to fully comply with increasingly widespread marine mammal monitoring regulations worldwide, QuietSea also helps to optimise the productivity of marine seismic operations.
“Unlike other industry PAM systems which carry the risk of their separate array becoming tangled at sea and causing downtime, QuietSea’s integrated architecture allows for easy and safe deployment, guaranteeing reliable operations,” the company claims.
“QuietSea is a valuable tool for complementing the work of marine mammal observers (MMO) during seismic operations.
“Its patented advanced and automated mammal detection and localisation algorithms provide an additional, objective source of information for decision-making, particularly during night-time operations.”
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