Sercel has launched QuietSea™, its new passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) system designed to detect the presence of marine mammals during seismic operations. Totally different from other commercially available PAM systems, QuietSea is set to revolutionize 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). This allows for greatly enhanced marine mammal detection capabilities in a wide frequency listening range that covers a large variety of vocalizing cetacean species.
QuietSea also benefits from synergies with Sercel’s Seal 428 marine seismic recorder and SeaPro Nav navigation system to accurately locate marine mammal positions.
While enabling marine seismic contractors to fully comply with increasingly widespread marine mammal monitoring regulations worldwide, QuietSea also helps to optimize 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.
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 localization algorithms provide an additional, objective source of information for decision-making, particularly during night-time operations.
Pascal Rouiller, Sercel CEO, said: “With the launch of QuietSea, Sercel continues to demonstrate its commitment to helping its clients conduct environmentally responsible marine seismic operations. QuietSea offers seismic contractors and oil companies a high-performance, objective and reliable system for monitoring marine animals and implementing mitigation measures that minimize the potential impact of man-made sound while optimizing seismic productivity and costs.”
Press Release, June 16, 2014; Image: