New map shows the quietest places in the United States

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A new map shows the quietest and the loudest places in the United States.

The map was released Monday from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It was made using 1.5 million hours of audio recordings captured from heavily populated and mostly rural places across the country.

The National Park Service will use the map to see where man-made noise is affecting wildlife. They claim animals like bats and owls are disturbed by loud noises, because they have more sensitive hearing.

Places like Olympic National Park appear very blue on the map, which makes it one of the quieter places. The park has previously been called the quietest place in the United States. It is part of a project called One Square Inch of Silence, which was created to get airlines to avoid flying near one inch of the forest. The organizers hope to create large areas of silence by protecting a square inch of the park from noise, because sound often travels long distances in natural areas.