Uncovering the mystery of peculiar noises in the Mariana Trench | – Times of India

Researchers have traced mysterious sounds from the Mariana Trench to Bryde’s whales (Balaenoptera edeni). These peculiar noises, known as “biotwang,” resemble sci-fi starship sounds and are thought to be vocalizations used by the whales to communicate and locate one another in the vast ocean. The biotwang serves a function similar to a game of Marco Polo, where the whales call out to establish their positions.This discovery sheds light on the complexities of marine communication and the fascinating behaviors of deep-sea creatures, emphasizing the importance of understanding how these animals interact in their underwater environment.

Detection of unusual sounds in the Mariana Trench

The unusual sounds were first detected in 2014 during an acoustic survey of the Mariana Trench, which stretches over 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) south of Japan and reaches depths of 35,876 feet (10,935 metres). The biotwang consists of two distinct components: a deep, grumbling reverberation and a high-pitched, metallic ringing that has drawn comparisons to spaceship sounds in popular sci-fi franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars.
Initially, the origin of these sounds puzzled scientists. By 2016, researchers speculated that the biotwang might be produced by large baleen whales, such as blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) or humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), but none of the calls matched known whale sounds.

Linking Biotwang to Bryde’s whales through advanced AI

As per the recent study, researchers have definitively linked the biotwang to Bryde’s whales, aided by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools that analysed over 200,000 hours of audio data from various ocean recordings. The breakthrough came when the team observed a group of Bryde’s whales swimming near the Mariana Islands and recorded nine of them producing the distinctive noise. Lead author Ann Allen, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, noted, “Once, it’s a coincidence. Twice is happenstance. Nine times, it’s definitely a Bryde’s whale.”
To conclusively establish that Bryde’s whales were the source of the biotwang, researchers correlated the timing of the calls with the whales’ migration patterns, analysing years of audio captured by monitoring stations in the Mariana Archipelago and surrounding areas. They utilised AI to convert the biotwang into visual representations called spectrograms, which allowed a machine learning algorithm to differentiate these sounds from others.

Biotwang’s geographic and functional insights

The findings indicated that biotwang was predominantly detected in the northwest Pacific, suggesting that a specific population of Bryde’s whales is responsible for the calls, even though the species inhabits a much broader range. Interestingly, the data revealed an increase in biotwang sounds during 2016, coinciding with an El Niño event that raised ocean temperatures and attracted more Bryde’s whales to the region.
While the exact reason for the bizarre nature of these calls remains unclear, researchers hypothesise that the biotwang functions as a contact call, helping whales locate each other in the vast ocean. Allen stated, “It’s possible that they use the biotwang as a contact call, a sort of ‘Marco Polo’ of the ocean,” emphasising the need for further research to confirm this theory.
Also Read | Solar eclipse 2024 ‘ring of fire’ set to dazzle viewers – check visibility in India and timings