NOAA SEFSC Gulf of Mexico Moored Passive Acoustic Studies

This record represents raw passive acoustic data collected by NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) from moored recording instruments in the Gulf of Mexico since 2016. Moored acoustic recording instruments used in these studies include High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages (HARPs), developed and deployed by Scripps Institution of Oceanography on behalf of NOAA SEFSC, and Soundtrap long-term recorders. These recording instruments continuously record sound across a range of frequencies for use in studies of vocally-active cetaceans, fish species, and anthropogenic sound sources, and for characterizing the Gulf of Mexico soundscape. Study design and goals varied among deployments; the focus of many deployments was to understand the spatiotemporal distribution of the endangered Rice's whale. Raw acoustic recordings may be in wav, xwav, or flac format, depending on recording instrument and sample rate. In addition to the raw acoustic recordings, there may be several associated files for these data, which include calibration files (transfer functions) and Long-Term Spectral Averages (LTSAs) for sound exploration and accessibility. Three readme files provide details on the acoustic recording's xwav format, LTSA format, and transfer function descriptions, when appropriate. All recordings are collected in UTC.