IEEE Victoria Section AGM

Past

SPEAKER: Prof. Philippe Blondel, University of Bath, UK TITLE: Mapping and living in marine habitats - Sonars, seismics and ambient sounds ABSTRACT: Earth is our Blue Planet, covered with oceans. We started mapping the marine environment several decades ago, with increasingly sophisticated instruments mostly relying on acoustics. They have helped us discover mid-ocean ridges, hydrothermal vents, submarine canyons and rich habitats and ecosystems. We are increasingly using them, harvesting resources like fish and hydrocarbons, increasing commercial and recreational shipping, developing marine renewable energies. As we start mapping more places, in more detail, and monitoring human impacts on marine ecosystems, we are creating very large datasets, throwing challenges for data storage, long-term data access, reliable interpretation and comparison between regions and between times. This talk will present a personal perspective on the last decades, with the revolution in acoustic instruments and data processing, the potential of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, and the developments of autonomous platforms and seafloor observatories to form "Systems of Systems". This will be illustrated with examples from surveys and discoveries I was involved in: mapping hydrothermal vents, deep-sea wrecks and tsunami-generating areas; monitoring the impacts of marine renewable energy devices and improving seismic mitigation; designing techniques to follow the evolution of fragile marine habitats in Europe and Canada; and assessing the melting of Arctic glaciers. BIO: Philippe Blondel is co-founder and Deputy Director of the Centre for Space, Atmosphere and Ocean Science. With a PhD in Physics and Remote Sensing from Paris (France) and 20+ years of experience in the US and UK acoustics communities, he is also working on space applications of techniques developed in the oceans. He has worked in all oceans (except the Antarctic), from surveying mid-ocean ridges and discovering deep shipwrecks to studying whale habitats, glaciers in Svalbard and coastal habitats around Europe. He co-chairs the Arctic Acoustic Environment group of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment.

Agenda