The largest man-made moving object is not any of the opencast mining dump trucks, a giant transport plane, a space rocket transporter, or even an aircraft carrier. Although it has one thing in common with the latter: it swims. The facility serves oil companies, but it is not a mobile oil rig of any kind.
The device is called Polarcus Amani and it is a set consisting of a tug and a large network of… microphones pulled by it. The complex is used for seismic surveying of the seabed. In the tugboat there are pneumatic guns that generate waves hitting the surface of the seabed, which then, after reflection, reach a set of sensitive microphones behind the vessel, the construction of which is based on sonars used by navies around the world.
The ship itself is about 100 meters long and has a displacement of 8,000 tons. It is powered by four engines with a capacity of 3,000 horsepower each. Powerful pneumatic guns generate as much as 20 blows per second. The ship-hauled microphone network that has earned the structure the largest human-made moving object is 1.8 kilometers wide and covers an area of 17.6 square kilometers.
The new vessel will allow seismic surveys of the seabed at a speed unavailable for previous structures, amounting to 190 square kilometers per day. Polarcus Amani (owned by Polarcus) will start its career exploring the ocean off the coast of Myanmar (Burma), then set off to explore for oil around Brazil and Australia. It seems mining companies, while looking for undersea deposits, do not believe in keeping oil prices at record low for an extended period of time.
[źródło i grafika: popularmechanics.com]
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