JASCO Applied Sciences is playing a key environmental role during the construction of the first offshore wind farm in North America near Block Island, Rhode Island.  

JASCO Applied Sciences, under subcontract to Tetra Tech Inc., is providing underwater acoustic measurement and monitoring services to Deepwater Wind during the installation of the Block Island Wind Farm. JASCO is conducting field data acquisition and subsequent analysis and interpretation for short- and long-term studies of noise from pile driving and related construction activities. The work is supported by staff from one of JASCO’s USA offices, located in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The September issue of Marine Mammal Research Newsletter features the article “Decoding the mysterious songs of fin whales” about a cetacean research project by Barbara Koot performed in collaboration with JASCO Applied Sciences.

Koot, who conducted the research as part of her MSc thesis at the University of British Columbia, used JASCO’s acoustic analysis software framework to process large datasets of underwater sound recordings and automatically detect fin whale calls. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, another collaborator in the study, supported the deployment and retrieval of acoustic recording instruments offshore the British Columbia coastline.

JASCO Applied Sciences (Canada) Ltd has been selected by Port Metro Vancouver and Ocean Networks Canada to provide real-time passive acoustic monitoring of vessel traffic in the Strait of Georgia, BC, Canada, in order to study the potential impacts of shipping noise on marine mammals.

Two listening stations—each comprised of an AMAR Observer with a small spatial array of hydrophones and an AMAR Projector—were deployed on the major shipping route to Vancouver. These two systems are connected to shore in real-time via Ocean Networks Canada’s VENUS fibre optic cabled subsea observatory, which allows people and automated systems ashore to listen, measure, and characterize underwater sounds in the Strait of Georgia in real-time. AMAR Projectors calibrate and test the receiving arrays and will be useful in future planned experiments in underwater communications and navigation. These listening stations form part of the Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation (ECHO) Program.

JASCO has begun monitoring and measuring underwater sound at the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) tidal energy berth sites in the Bay of Fundy, Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.

The cabled monitoring system, designed and assembled in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is “world-leading ocean technology that helps protect our marine environment,” said Scott Carr, CEO of JASCO Applied Sciences. It is deployed on FORCE’s Fundy Advanced Sensor Technology mini-platform, an underwater framework that captures data from the site with onboard sensing equipment. “To harness the enormous power of the Bay of Fundy responsibly, we have to understand it. The FAST platforms give us a clearer, moment-by-moment picture of what’s happening under the water,” said FORCE general manager Tony Wright.

CBC News recently interviewed Dr. Peter Cott of Environment and Natural Resources (Government of the Northwest Territories) and adjunct at the University of Alberta. Cott has been studying sounds made by burbot under the ice at Great Slave Lake, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. 

The fish were held in a large experimental enclosure called the Lota-tron, a cubical net pen 10 m per side. Their calls were recorded with JASCO’s autonomous multi-channel acoustic recorder, the AMAR.

John Moloney discussed JASCO’s experience with exporting in a recent interview with The Chronicle Herald newspaper in Halifax, NS. JASCO is a global services company, and as such “we go where our customers need us,” says Moloney.

In February, Ocean Networks Canada posted an article highlighting JASCO’s involvement in one of the world’s most advanced cabled ocean observatories. JASCO’s AMAR Observer is helping ONC acoustically monitor orcas in the Salish Sea.

JASCO began collaborating with ONC’s Innovation Centre in 2012. Since September 2013, two AMAR Observers have been operating on ONC’s observatory in the Strait of Georgia. The Observers can collect and deliver acoustic and oceanographic data in real time, around the clock and throughout the year.