What can we see by illuminating the ambient deep sea?

Geoscientists usually use visuals like graphs and tables to explain their research to their peers or to non-specialists. However, it has been challenging to visualize how our Earth system works hidden behind complex geoscientific data effectively and intuitively to the general public. Art, as a universal language, has seen tremendous growth in the application of scientific data visualization in the last decade. Science-art collaborations become increasingly vital in creating new ways of popularizing geoscience. Here we present our recent immersive science-art interactive work titled 19 HZ, which explores the tectonic evolution and shaping of the deep sea through the visualization of submarine seismic data. The deep oceans were assumed to be quite silent. However, as more and more submarine monitoring experiments have been carried out, a hidden soundtrack under the sea was revealed, composed by marine animals like fish and mammals, and a number of natural phenomenons like submarine earthquakes and volcano activities, as well as human activities like ship-tracks. Our team (Deep Sea Light, DSL) has been working on the auralization and visualization of submarine seismic data, which offers a great opportunity to explore the dynamic world of deep oceans. Using seismic stations, we have successfully detected the activities of earthquakes, volcano eruption, and even fin whale songs. We further use the Audio Spectrum and the Touch Designer to visualize enormous soundtracks under the sea in 3D perspective and present different scenarios physically to the audience through artistic interactive devices. Under the lens of the ocean soundscape, our project will make the ambient deep-sea world more accessible to the public and convey to them how humans should listen to and understand the submarine world reverently.