Credit River Sea Creatures - The Bloop
In 1997, researchers listening for underwater volcanic activity in the southern Pacific recorded a strange, powerful, and extremely loud sound. Using underwater microphones they recorded numerous instances of the noise, which was unlike anything they had heard before. Not only was it loud, the sound had a unique characteristic that came to be known as “the Bloop.”
Scientists from NOAA’s were eager to discover the sound's origin and theories abounded. Was the Bloop from secret underwater military exercises, ship engines, fishing boat winches, giant squids, whales, or a some sea creature unknown to science?
As the years passed NOAA's researchers continued to deploy hydrophones ever closer to Antarctica and it was there that they finally discovered the source. The Bloop was the sound of an icequake—an iceberg cracking and breaking away from an Antarctic glacier.
