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From National Geographic:

Military Sonar May Give Whales the Bends, Study Says

This physical effect of sonar on whales was proposed by Dorian Houser of the Navy Marine Mammal Program and colleagues in San Diego, California, in 2001.

Houser and colleagues devised a mathematical model that shows low-frequency sound waves can rapidly compress and then expand microscopic bubbles of gas in the tissue. Each sound wave causes the bubble to absorb more and more of the gas dissolved in the bloodstream, eventually making the bubbles big enough to rupture tissues.

But...

Roger Gentry, a scientist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Silver Spring, Maryland, who studies marine mammal strandings, said the connection between the beaked whale strandings and the military sonar exercises is clear, but he is not certain the sonar causes an ailment similar to decompression sickness, as reported in Nature.

"None of the authors is an expert on decompression sickness and none of the results have been seen by anyone who is an expert on decompression sickness," he said.

The fisheries service is trying to set up a workshop before the end of year where the authors of the Nature paper can present their findings to experts on decompression sickness. Similar research was presented at a workshop organized by the fisheries service in 2002 and it remains a valid hypothesis, said Gentry.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...halebends.html