What does the ocean sound like? with Dr. HEATHER SPENCE

Head On Fire

When you think about what the ocean sounds like, what does your brain conjure up? Maybe the gentle ebbing and flowing of tides? Maybe you think of marine life? Perhaps the songs of whales or that clicking sound dolphins make. But what about the snapping of air bubbles created by thousands of shrimp in tide pools? What about the ambient noise of both the shallow and deep parts of the ocean? Have you ever considered those, and, more importantly, have you ever considered that what the ocean sounds like can have an impact on everything from conservation to energy to video games?
Dr. Heather Spence is the living embodiment of every 90s kids’ dream of growing up to become a marine biologist. But unlike most 90s kids, she didn’t get there by dreaming of swimming with dolphins. She got there through sound. Dr. Spence is a cellist who became fascinated with the concept of sound in college, and that fascination led her all the way to the depths of the ocean. Now her research is in a curious field called Marine Bioacoustics, and her work is used both by the Department of Energy and video game developers. And lately she’s even studying whether the ocean has a memory and how we can access it.
We sat down for a conversation spanning the blue depths that make up the majority of our planet’s surface.
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