Intro to ADRIFT

Introduction to ADRIFT

The ADRIFT in the California Current project uses relatively low cost drifting buoys to study the marine environment. The buoys drift freely with the currents and provide a means of studying the marine environment that are not tethered to a ship or the seafloor. This allows us to study animals (and the environment) in deep, offshore waters without the influence of a noisy ship.

ADRIFT buoys consist of a surface buoy, a hydrophone array and recorder at depth, and a rope to connect the surface buoy to the array. The surface buoy provides communications (satellite tracker and radar reflector to avoid vessel collision). Our recording system consists of a 2 element vertical hydrophone array connected to a Soundtrap multi-channel autonomous recorder.

For More Information:

Southwest Acoustic Ecology Web Page and ADRIFT web page

Our Blog

Detailed methods for field data collection can be found here.