The team is trying to solve the mystery of extremely energetic cosmic rays that hit our atmosphere, sparking showers of other particles.
Physicists have no idea what the rays are, where they come from, or how they travel so fast.
One possibility is that they are neutrinos, in which case some would make it into the ocean. If they then interact with atoms in the water, the researchers reckon they'll be able to hear them. A neutrino with an energy of 1020 electronvolts hitting an atomic nucleus in the sea would create more than 10 billion particles, which would dump their energy as heat. It's easy enough to generate a sound pulse. Such a pulse would span a range from audible frequencies to near-ultrasound.