Acoustic Recording Package

Acoustic Recording Packages (ARPs), developed at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Marine Physical Laboratory Whale Acoustics, are long-term, autonomous devices which record marine mammal calls (e.g. whales and seals).

The ARPs consist of a small frame (approx. 4' x 4' x 3') that holds weights, batteries, and a hard disk, together with a hydrophone suspended roughly 10 m above the frame. The sample rate is 500 Hz, and the hard-disk storage capacity of 36Gbytes makes the ARP capable of a 400 day deployment. The ARPs are deployed by lowering them into the water at pre-determined locations using the ship’s crane. They sit on the bottom and continuously record data until the time of recovery. ARPs have been successfully deployed and recovered in a variety of locations.