Descr: Short description of project: The objective of this project is to determine how far the seismic vocalizations of elephants travel in their natural environment. We have previously shown that elephant vocalizations, with a fundamental frequency around 20Hz, couple with the ground and travel as Rayleigh waves. In order to determine how effective these seismic signals would be in long distance communication we need to understand how far these signals can travel when produced by elephants in their natural setting. We will deploy a large geophone array with 3 meter offsets at a waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia. This array will be used to record and measure the attenuation rate of elephant vocalizations that are produced by wild elephants that visit this waterhole.
