February 13, 2017 — Fish are being pushed from their homes by seismic testing, a surveying method that uses dynamite, a specialized air gun or a seismic vibrator to develop images of the rock layers below the ground.
Avery Paxton, a marine ecologist Ph.D. student from the University of North Carolina, recently studied the impact seismic testing has on fish who inhabit a reef 30 miles off the coast of North Carolina and found that during seismic surveying, reef-fish abundance declined by 78%.
“What was really interesting is that this decrease occurred during the evening hours, when before the survey the fish were most active on the reef,” Paxton said in an exclusive interview with R&D Magazine. “We don’t know exactly where they went, we assume that they moved from the noisy reef to a nearby quieter reef or perhaps some of the smaller fish went and hid in the holes or crevices.”
Paxton said to conduct the study the research team placed underwater cameras and microphones at the reef and observed the data three days before the test and also during the seismic test.
However, due to a battery issue the study does not include any data after the survey.
Paxton said the majority of research on the impacts of seismic testing centers around marine mammals and not fish.