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Marine Mammal Observer
A marine mammal observer (MMO) is a professional in environmental consulting who specializes in whales and dolphins. In recent years there has been increased concern for the effect of man-made noise pollution in the ocean, particularly upon cetaceans - which are known to be sensitive to sound. As a result, environmental regulations have been introduced in an attempt to minimise negative impacts on marine wildlife. These guidelines have focused on the oil industry's seismic exploration for offshore oil. They center on the practice of delaying or shutting down the use of air-guns if a whale or dolphin is sighted nearby. As a result, the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers released a report in 2017 describing recommended monitoring and mitigation measures for cetaceans during marine seismic survey geophysical operations. An MMO will implement these regulations in the field. When on board the seismic vessel, the MMO's job is two-fold: #To spot sensitive wildlife specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Consulting
Environmental consulting is often a form of compliance (regulation), compliance Consultant, consulting, in which the consultant ensures that the client maintains an appropriate measure of compliance with environmental regulations. There are many types of environmental consultants, but the two main groups are those who enter the field from the industry side, and those who enter the field from the environmentalist side. Environmental consultants work in a very wide variety of fields. Whether it be providing construction services such as Asbestos Hazard Assessments or Lead Hazard Assessments or conducting due diligence reports for customers to rid them of possible sanctions. Consultancies may generalize across a wide range of disciplines or specialize in certain areas of environmental consultancy such as waste management. Environmental consultants usually have an undergraduate degree and sometimes even master's degree in Environmental Engineering, Environmental Science, Environmental ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale). Odontocetes include the Monodontidae (beluga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the brackish dolphins), and the extinct Lipotidae (baiji or Chinese river dolphin). There are 40 extant species named as dolphins. Dolphins range in size from the and Maui's dolphin to the and orca. Various species of dolphins exhibit sexual dimorphism where the males are larger than females. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can briefly travel at speeds of per hour or leap about . Dolphins use their conical teeth to capture fast-moving prey. They have well-developed hearing which is adapted for both air and water. It is so well developed that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noise Pollution
Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them are harmful to a degree. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mainly caused by machines, transport, and propagation systems.Senate Public Works Committee. ''Noise Pollution and Abatement Act of 1972''. S. Rep. No. 1160, 92nd Congress. 2nd session Poor urban planning may give rise to noise disintegration or pollution, side-by-side industrial and residential buildings can result in noise pollution in the residential areas. Some of the main sources of noise in residential areas include loud music, transportation (traffic, rail, airplanes, etc.), lawn care maintenance, construction, electrical generators, wind turbines, explosions, and people. Documented problems associated with noise in urban environments go back as far as ancient Rome. Research suggests that noise pollution in the United States is the high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cetaceans
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel themselves through the water with powerful up-and-down movement of their tail which ends in a paddle-like fluke, using their flipper-shaped forelimbs to maneuver. While the majority of cetaceans live in marine environments, a small number exclusively reside in brackish water or fresh water. Having a cosmopolitan distribution, they can be found in some rivers and all of Earth's oceans, and many species inhabit vast ranges where they migrate with the changing of the seasons. Cetaceans are famous for their high intelligence and complex social behaviour as well as for the enormous size of some of the group's members, such as the blue whale which reaches a maximum confirmed length of 29.9 meters (98 feet) and a weight of 173 tonnes (190 short tons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Regulation
Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental Legal doctrine, legal principles, focus on the management of specific natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries. Other areas, such as environmental impact assessment, may not fit neatly into either category, but are nonetheless important components of environmental law. History Early examples of legal enactments designed to consciously preserve the environment, for its own sake or human enjoyment, are found throughout history. In the common law, the primary protection was found in the law of Nuisance in English law, nuisance, but this only allowed for private actions for damages or injunctions if there was harm to land. Thus, smells emanating from pig sty, pigsties, strict liability against dumping rubbish, or damage from exploding dams. Private enforcement, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seismic
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. It also includes studies of earthquake environmental effects such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, glacial, fluvial, oceanic, atmospheric, and artificial processes such as explosions. A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology. A recording of Earth motion as a function of time is called a seismogram. A seismologist is a scientist who does research in seismology. History Scholarly interest in earthquakes can be traced back to antiquity. Early speculations on the natural causes of earthquakes were included in the writings of Thales of Miletus (c. 585 BCE), Anaximenes of Miletus (c. 550 BCE), Aristotle (c. 340 BCE), and Zhan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Association Of Oil & Gas Producers
The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) is the petroleum industry's global forum in which members identify and share best practices to achieve improvements in health, safety, the environment, security, social responsibility, engineering and operations. The association was formed in London in 1974 to develop effective communications between the upstream industry and the network of international regulators. Originally called the ''E&P Forum'' (for oil and gas exploration and production), in 1999 the current name was adopted. Most of the world’s leading publicly traded, private and state-owned oil & gas companies, oil & gas associations and major upstream service companies are members. The IOGP claims its members produce 40% of the world’s oil and gas. Co-operation with other bodies IOGP also represent the interests of the upstream industry before international regulators and legislators in UN bodies such as the International Maritime Organization and the Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrophone
A hydrophone ( grc, ὕδωρ + φωνή, , water + sound) is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potential when subjected to a pressure change, such as a sound wave. Some piezoelectric transducers can also serve as a sound projector, but not all have this capability, and some may be destroyed if used in such a manner. A hydrophone can detect airborne sounds, but will be insensitive because it is designed to match the acoustic impedance of water, a denser fluid than air. Sound travels 4.3 times faster in water than in air, and a sound wave in water exerts a pressure 60 times that exerted by a wave of the same amplitude in air. Similarly, a standard microphone can be buried in the ground, or immersed in water if it is put in a waterproof container, but will give poor performance due to the similarly bad acoustic impedance match. History The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marine Biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy. A large proportion of all life on Earth lives in the ocean. The exact size of this ''large proportion'' is unknown, since many ocean species are still to be discovered. The ocean is a complex three-dimensional world covering approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The habitats studied in marine biology include everything from the tiny layers of surface water in which organisms and abiotic items may be trapped in surface tension between the ocean and atmosphere, to the depths of the oceanic trenches, sometimes 10,000 meters or more beneath the surface of the ocean. Specific habitats include estuaries, coral reefs, kelp forests, seagrass meadows, the surrounds of seamounts and therm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservation Biology
Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource management. The conservation ethic is based on the findings of conservation biology. Origins The term conservation biology and its conception as a new field originated with the convening of "The First International Conference on Research in Conservation Biology" held at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, California, in 1978 led by American biologists Bruce A. Wilcox and Michael E. Soulé with a group of leading university and zoo researchers and conservationists including Kurt Benirschke, Sir Otto Frankel, Thomas Lovejoy, and Jared Diamond. The meeting was prompted due to concern over tropical deforestation, disappearin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil Platform
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform bridge linked to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed Platform, fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or floating oil production system, float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical cable, umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include of one or more subsea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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