A poem by Expedition

Composed of notes that take time to build, a symphony plays within the deep sound channel.

Collecting notes and tunes it likes, replaying and reinventing them, the symphony’s orchestrator is the deep sound channel.

Performed by great beasts, other beasts and fish that migrate over global distances, and blue water vessels and ocean currents. Even wind, volcanoes, and earth’s crust contribute to the dazzling display of sounds found within the deep sound channel.

A mighty Fin whale calls with deep tones that slide down an octave while being formed. His voice, the most powerful of deep-sea creatures, persists within the deep sound channel.

Commercial vessels, running upon large waves, launch low frequency rolling tones into the sea from shipping lanes far away. These enter the deep sound channel from above and stay.

Beats, not made by the groaning engines of one ship in particular than another, but combined making wavelengths so long they reach across the ocean in the deep sound channel.

Grumbling earthquakes form envelopes of long wavelength sound that rumble through the sea. These enter the deep sound channel from below and stay.

Formed on bedrock outcrops along shorelines, sounds from plunging breakers travel down the continental slope to join the movements within the deep sound channel.

Acoustic waves, trapped within the limits of the channel so act upon the waves that a single note reveals itself in pulses, each pulse louder than the last until the one taking the shortest path gets here last. A blast wave from a distant offshore mining expedition pulses with increasing volume

BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!

At thirty-second intervals fighter jets launch off the deck of a distant aircraft carrier. With each whoosh the carrier shutters causing half wavelength envelopes to form. Each takeoff of a fighter jet, synchronized so perfectly with the decaying envelope of the last, adds energy and the standing waveform grows; its overtones reach down into the deep sound channel and stay.

Deep tonal murmurs from volcanoes building pressure inside the crust provide measure through most of this. Something pumps, something trembles, and something pounds, rising from hidden places within the deep sound channel.

Low frequencies resonate slowly within the limits of the deep sound channel: thunder rumbles from a distant storm and Bear in flight.

Deep-sea creatures languishing in the doldrums growl, grumble, grunt and howl within the deep sound channel.

We cruise at four thousand feet with a layer of water above that keeps an extra measure of sound within its boundaries and helps that sound travel further because it dissipates more as inverse distance than inverse square within the deep sound channel.