Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Quatro
Who's hearing or receiving all of these sounds? Sosus closed down years ago and was a couple of thousand miles from there. As far as I know you can only hear perhaps 75 miles away on another sensor platform like a submarine.
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The "Comprehensive Nuclear Test ban Treaty Organization" was established and provided with the IMS (International Monitoring System and Communications Infrastructure) some of which is still being constructed.
the system consists of:
Seismic Monitors
Hydro-Acoustic Stations
Acoustic Pressure Sensors
Radionuclide Stations which detect radioactive material in the air
the purpose of this equipment is to listen, watch, and feel for signs of nuclear explosions in violation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
In this case, the organization's Hydro-Acoustic Stations in the South Atlantic registered the loud explosions on sonar approximately 3 hours after the last communication with the San Juan.
as im sure you could imagine, it takes some time to pour through the data, listen to the sounds, sample the air etc
in this case, the CBTBO noted that the sound may correlate to the search to the San Juan and made their data available to the appropriate authorities.
EDIT: in short, the notation of the sound was more or less just stumbled upon - they were not "listening for subs"