By Jacob VanGundy | Published
After a decade, a mysterious sound emanating from the Mariana Trench has been identified. The strange noise, described by researchers as a “biotwang,” was first heard coming from the deep-sea canyon in 2014, and scientists have speculated about its source for years. Recently, a stroke of luck and new AI technology allowed a team of oceanographers to identify the noise.
Mariana Trench’s “biotwang” is a bizarre, almost supernatural sound that combines the sounds people associate with animals and those they don’t. Starting with a low, growling sound, it is followed by high-pitched noises that sound mechanical to many. Lauren Hareel, a member of the team that solved the mystery, compared the higher-pitched sounds to those made by the Enterprise in Star Trek.
The technology that helped solve the mystery of the Mariana Trench could be a huge asset to oceanographers working on other research.
While many found the sounds coming from the Mariana Trench unnatural, the common theory among oceanographers was that they were whale sounds. Unfortunately, confirming this theory was incredibly difficult because it would require researchers to see the animals for themselves while encountering the sound, and then connect the two sounds. Against all odds, one team managed to do just that.
A stroke of luck led a research team to work near the Mariana Trench to spot a pod of Bryde’s whales. The rare whales were heard emitting a distinct sound, which the team recorded. There were a total of 10 whale sightings during the research trip and sound was heard during all but one of these sightings, firmly linking the sightings to the noise.
While many found the sounds coming from the Mariana Trench unnatural, the common theory among oceanographers was that they were whale sounds.
Of course, the research team didn’t immediately identify the sound of Bryde’s whales as the mysterious sound of the Mariana Trench. When the research team was trying to look for matches with audio, they were confronted with a database of more than 200,000 hours of recordings. Ann Allen, one of the researchers who made the discovery, says that when she became overwhelmed by the volume of data, her father suggested she ask Google for help.
Ann Allen took her father’s advice and asked Google to help her on the project, which led to the final breakthrough in the sound mystery of Mariana Trench. Using an AI trained to turn sound files into spectrograms and then compare those results to find patterns, the team was able to connect the whales to the “biotwang.” AI tools made it possible to make this connection, which otherwise would have required hundreds of thousands of hours of manual comparison, a nearly impossible task.
The depths of the Mariana Trench remain mysterious in many ways, but the frightening sound of the “biotwang” has finally been debunked.
The technology that helped solve the mystery of the Mariana Trench could be a huge asset to oceanographers working on other research. In addition to connecting this specific population of whales to sound from a decade ago, it helped the team track their movements through other recordings of their sound. This tracking capability could help scientists determine the influence of environmental factors on specific animal populations.
The depths of the Mariana Trench remain mysterious in many ways, but the frightening sound of the “biotwang” has finally been debunked. A combination of hard work, new technology and luck led to this breakthrough, which could help future oceanographers solve similar mysteries much more quickly. Google has made the sound identification AI tool open source, meaning the next time a mysterious noise is picked up in the depths, researchers will have a new way to track down its source.
Source: Scientific American