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Audio Display Prototype: 2015 Axial Seamount Eruption

Based on data sonifications I made for the 2015 Axial Seamount Eruption Data Nugget, I mocked up an audio display prototype, which I have included below. The audio display has three tracks that roughly span four minutes in length. I included the graph of the 35 days of bottom pressure sensor data alongside a playlist of the audio files. The audio display material consists of a narrator, five sonifications, and a few earcons embedded within the sonification mix. To additionally mock up the sound of natural environment bed tracks, I have six audio files in the playlist. Tracks 1 - 3 contain the sound of waves as a bed track under the narrator. Tracks 4 - 6 are the same audio display but without an environmental bed track under the narrator.

Headphones are best for listening.

graph that depicts changes in the bottom pressure of the ocean over one month. The data was taken from sensors on the Juan de Fuca plate in the NE Pacific Ocean. The changes in bottom pressure in the graph depict daily fluctuations of the tidal cycle across the entire graph, but is marked by a large shift in bottom pressure in the middle of the data on April 24, 2015. The bottom pressure shifted as a result of the volcanic eruption — an indication that the seafloor dropped.

References

Smith, Leslie M., Lori Garzio. "2015 Axial Seamount Eruption." Data Nuggets. Ocean Data Labs. 2020. https://datalab.marine.rutgers.edu/data-nuggets/axial-eruption/

Siu, Alexa, Gene S-H Kim, Sile O’Modhrain, and Sean Follmer. “Supporting Accessible Data Visualization Through Audio Data Narratives.” In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–19. New Orleans LA USA: ACM, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517678.

Learn More

Learn more about data sonification.

Learn more about sound design.

Learn more about the parameters of sound.

by Jon Bellona

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