Green-Schools Marine school in Co. Waterford records fin whale song with the QuakeShake project! 

Green-Schools Marine have teamed up with QuakeShake and Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, to monitor seismic activity! The QuakeShake team have kindly loaned out a small piece of earthquake detecting equipment, known as a “Raspberry Shake”, which is being shared between the Green-Schools Marine and Clean Coasts teams. 

Not only can Raspberry Shakes record earthquakes but they can also record signals originating from other, sometimes unusual sources around us. To our surprise, these land based seismometers are capable of detecting and recording calls from Earth’s second largest animal – the fin whale! With this in mind, the Green-Schools Raspberry Shake was set up at St James’s National School, a Green-School in Stradbally, Co. Waterford, in November, and the Green-Schools Committee there were put in charge of looking after this exciting piece of equipment. To our delight, the seismologists at QuakeShake recently confirmed that the Raspberry Shake at St James’s has picked up the vibrations caused by fin whales singing off the Waterford coast! 

To find out more, check out this blog post by Clean Coasts Biodiversity Officer, Liane. You can find out more about the QuakeShake project and fin whale song by watching back our webinar from Marine Week 2025, with DIAS scientist Dr Martin Möllhoff, at this link. Keep an eye out for more exciting updates from the An Taisce Raspberry Shake over the coming months!