"cetacea populus" is a sound-emitting sculptural installation consisting of cottonwood logs and a steel "rock". This work is a prototype intended to be located in the bosque of the Rio Grande. Through a subwoofer and mid-range speakers, it plays a sound loop of modified echo-locating signals of blue whales--the intention is to relay to the viewer a time and place when the river valley itself was once the bottom of an ocean.