Remote sensing of sediment density and velocity gradients in the transition layer

The geoacoustic properties of marine sediments, e.g., bulk density and compressional velocity, commonly exhibit large variations in depth near the water-sediment interface. This layer, termed the transition layer, is typically of 0(10(-1)-10(0)) m in thickness. Depth variations within the transition layer may have important implications for understanding and modeling acoustic interaction with the seabed, including propagation and reverberation. In addition, the variations may contain significant clues about the underlying depositional or erosional processes. Characteristics of the transition layer can be measured directly (e.g., coring) or remotely. Remote measurements have the advantage of sampling without disturbing the sediment properties; they also have the potential to be orders of magnitude faster and less expensive than direct methods. It is shown that broadband seabed reflection data can be exploited to remotely obtain the depth dependent density and velocity profiles in the transition layer to high accuracy. A Bayesian inversion approach, which accounts for correlated data errors, provides estimates and uncertainties for the geoacoustic properties. These properties agree with direct (i.e., core) measurements within the uncertainty estimates.     

High-resolution geoacoustic inversion in shallow water: a joint time- and frequency-domain technique

High-resolution geoacoustic data are required for accurate predictions of acoustic propagation and scattering in shallow water. Since direct measurement of geoacoustic data is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, inversion of acoustic data is a promising alternative. However, the main problem encountered in geoacoustic inversion is the problem of uniqueness, i.e., many diverse geoacoustic models can be made to fit the same data set. A key, and perhaps unique, aspect of this approach is the combination of data analysis in both the space-time and the space-frequency domains. This combination attempts to ameliorate the uniqueness problem by exploiting as much independent data as possible. In order to meet the stringent requirements of high spatial resolution and uniqueness, an entire method has been developed including a new measurement technique, processing/analysis technique, and inversion strategy. These techniques are described and then illustrated with a shallow-water data set. Sound-speed gradients in the upper few meters of the sub-bottom appear to be much higher (one order of magnitude) than generally assumed. And, although often ignored, a large density gradient was observed in the top layer that played an acoustically significant role.     

Subbottom profiling using a ship towed line array and geoacoustic inversion

Bottom profiling traditionally uses broadband signals received on a line array at long ranges to estimate the bottom layer structure and thickness. In this paper, a subbottom profiling method is developed and applied to a ship-towed line array using the same ship towed source to estimate the subbottom layer structure and thickness. A ship towed line-array system can be used to estimate bottom properties using geoacoustic inversion and can cover a wide area in a short time. It needs some prior information about the subbottom structure and layer thickness, without which the solution can be ambiguous and even erratic when resolving parameters over a wide area. It is shown that the required subbottom information can be obtained from the time-angle relation by beamforming the same acoustic signal data used for geoacoustic inversion. The time-angle analysis is used to expose the prevalent physics intrinsic to geoacoustic inversion. One finds that the tau-p relation of the bottom and the bottom reflection coefficients, sampled at discrete angles associated with bottom and multiple surface-bottom returns, are often adequate, for many practical applications, to uniquely determine the geoacoustic bottom at low (< or =1 kHz) frequencies.     

The impact of water column variability on horizontal wave number estimation and mode based geoacoustic inversion results

The influence of water column variability on low-frequency, shallow water geoacoustic inversion results is considered. The data are estimates of modal eigenvalues obtained from measurements of a point source acoustic field using a horizontal aperture array in the water column. The inversion algorithm is based on perturbations to a background waveguide model with seabed properties consistent with the measured eigenvalues. Water column properties in the background model are assumed to be known, as would be obtained from conductivity, temperature, and depth measurements. The scope of this work in addressing the impact of water column variability on inversion is twofold. Range-dependent propagation effects as they pertain to eigenvalue estimation are first considered. It is shown that mode coupling is important even for weak internal waves and can enhance modal eigenvalue estimates. Second, the effect of the choice of background sound speed profile in the water column is considered for its impact on the estimated bottom acoustic properties. It is shown that a range-averaged sound velocity profile yields the best geoacoustic parameter estimates.     

Geoacoustic inversion with ships as sources

Estimation of geoacoustic parameters using acoustic data from a surface ship was performed for a shallow water region in the Gulf of Mexico. The data were recorded from hydrophones in a bottom mounted, horizontal line array (HLA). The techniques developed to produce the geoacoustic inversion are described, and an efficient method for geoacoustic inversion with broadband beam cross-spectral data is demonstrated. The performance of cost functions that involve coherent or incoherent sums over frequency and one or multiple time segments is discussed. Successful inversions for the first sediment layer sound speed and thickness and some of the parameters for the deeper layers were obtained with the surface ship at nominal ranges of 20, 30, or 50 water depths. The data for these inversions were beam cross-spectra from four subapertures of the HLA spanning a little more than two water depths. The subaperture beams included ten frequencies equally spaced in the 120-200 Hz band. The values of the geoacoustic parameters from the inversions are validated by comparisons with geophysical observations and with the parameter values from previous inversions by other invesigators, and by comparing transmission loss (TL) measured in the experiment with modeled TL based on the inverted geoacoustic parameters.     

利用海底反射信号进行地声参数反演的方法

针对现有反演方法的缺点,提出了一种基于海底反射信号的地声参数高分辨反演方法.它利用短距离声源在不同深度上发射宽带线性调频信号,采用垂直阵进行接收,首先通过匹配滤波方法提取多径到达信息,然后利用海底反射损失曲线,反演海底表层的声速和密度,最后利用浅底层反射信号估计沉积层参数.由于海水中直达波受到内波的强烈影响,选择海底表面反射作为参考,用以可靠地计算浅底层反射的相对到达时间和幅度,从而估计出沉积层的厚度、速度和衰减系数.通过海上实验,验证了利用浅底层反射信号反演参数的有效性. 关键词： 海底参数 反演 浅底层反射信号     

Anomalous sound propagation due to the horizontal variation of seabed acoustic properties

Sound speed profile and the bottom acoustic property are two of the most important factors, which influence the sound propagation in shallow water. The activities of the internal waves make the temperature of the sea-water varying with the time and space, and then affect the sound propagation in the sea. In 1991 Zhou and his colleagues postu-lated that unusually high transmission losses (TL) over a limited frequency range found in annual measurements taken in the Yellow Sea was due to the in…     

Modeling three-dimensional propagation in a continental shelf environment

An acoustic propagation model is applied to predict measurements of three-dimensional (3-D) effects recorded off the southeast coast of Florida. The measured signal is produced by a low frequency source that is towed north parallel to the shelf from a fixed receiving array. The acoustic data show the direct path arrival at the bearing of the tow ship and a second refracted path arrival as much as 30° inshore of the direct arrival. Notably, the refracted arrival has a received level more than 25 dB greater than that of the direct arrival. A geoacoustic model of the environment is created to explain the data. It is shown that the topography of the seafloor plays the largest role in controlling horizontal refraction effects, whereas the range-dependent sediment properties have the most influence on the received level. The modeling approach is based on a 3-D adiabatic mode technique in which the horizontal refraction equation is solved using a parabolic equation in Cartesian coordinates. A modal decomposition of the field provides insight into the variability in the arrival angle and received level of the measured signal.     

Broadband sound propagation in shallow water and geoacoustic inversion

Part of an experiment to test a measurement package in a shallow water region in the Gulf of Mexico was designed to gather broadband acoustic data suitable for inversion to estimate seabed geoacoustic parameters. Continuous wave tow acoustic signals at multiple frequencies and broadband impulsive source signals were recorded on a horizontal line array in a high-noise environment. Simulated annealing with a normal mode forward propagation model is utilized to invert for a geoacoustic representation of the seabed. Several inversions are made from different data samples of two light bulb implosions, the measured sound speed profiles at the HLA and at the positions of the light bulb deployments, and for two different cost functions. The different cost functions, measured sound speed profiles, and measured time series result in different inverted geoacoustic profiles from which transmission loss is generated for comparison with measurements. On the basis of physical consistency and from the comparison of the transmission loss and time series, a best estimate geoacoustic profile is selected and compared to those obtained from previously reported inversions. Uncertainties in the sound speed profile are shown to affect the uncertainties of the estimated seabed parameters.     

Full wave-field reflection coefficient inversion

This paper develops a Bayesian inversion for recovering multilayer geoacoustic (velocity, density, attenuation) profiles from a full wave-field (spherical-wave) seabed reflection response. The reflection data originate from acoustic time series windowed for a single bottom interaction, which are processed to yield reflection coefficient data as a function of frequency and angle. Replica data for inversion are computed using a wave number-integration model to calculate the full complex acoustic pressure field, which is processed to produce a commensurate seabed response function. To address the high computational cost of calculating short range acoustic fields, the inversion algorithms are parallelized and frequency averaging is replaced by range averaging in the forward model. The posterior probability density is interpreted in terms of optimal parameter estimates, marginal distributions, and credibility intervals. Inversion results for the full wave-field seabed response are compared to those obtained using plane-wave reflection coefficients. A realistic synthetic study indicates that the plane-wave assumption can fail, producing erroneous results with misleading uncertainty bounds, whereas excellent results are obtained with the full-wave reflection inversion.     

Bayesian geoacoustic inversion of ship noise on a horizontal array

This paper applies geoacoustic inversion to low-frequency narrow-band acoustic data from a quiet surface ship recorded on a bottom-moored horizontal line array in shallow water. A Bayesian matched-field inversion method is employed which quantifies geoacoustic uncertainties and allows for meaningful comparison of inversion results from different data sets. Geoacoustic inversion results for ship-noise data are compared with inversion results for multitone data from a towed controlled source collected in the same experiment, and with independent geophysical measurements. To increase the information content of low-level ship-noise data, the effect of including multiple, independent data segments in the inversion is investigated and shown to significantly reduce geoacoustic parameter uncertainties. Geoacoustic uncertainties are also shown to depend on ship range and orientation, with increased uncertainties for long ranges and for the ship stern oriented away from the array.     

地声参数及传播损失不确定性估计与建模

地声参数的不确定性对水声传播具有重要的影响。通过贝叶斯理论建立水声环境不确定性推理模型,理论推导了地声参数的似然函数以及地声参数和传播损失的后验概率密度,并采用MCMC(Markov Chain Monte Carlo)进行了仿真计算,给出了地声参数的二维后验联合概率密度和一维边缘概率密度,在此基础上对传播损失的不确定性进行了估计,得到了传播损失80%的可信区间。仿真和实验结果表明,该方法适用于地声参数反演和不确定性估计,并能获取因地声参数不确定性导致的传播损失不确定性估计。     

Application of the Transmission Line Matrix method for outdoor sound propagation modelling – Part 2: Experimental validation using meteorological data derived from the meso-scale model Meso-NH

Outdoor sound prediction is both a societal concern and a scientific issue. This paper deals with numerical simulations of micrometeorological (temperature and wind) fields for environmental acoustics. These simulations are carried out using the reference meso-scale meteorological model at the Meteo-France weather agency (Meso-NH). Meso-NH predictions at very fine scales (up to 3 m), including new developments (drag force approach), are validated both numerically and experimentally under stable, unstable and neutral conditions. Then, this information can be used as input data for the acoustic propagation model. The time-domain acoustic model is based on the Transmission Line Matrix method. Its development has also been promoted for application to outdoor sound propagation, i.e. to take into account topography, ground impedance, meteorological conditions, etc. In part 1, the presentation and evaluation of the Transmission Line Matrix method showed the relevance of this method’s use in the context of environmental acoustics. Finally, simulated noise levels under different propagation conditions were compared to in situ measurements. Satisfactory results were obtained regarding the variability of the observed phenomena.     

Mid-frequency geoacoustic inversion using bottom loss data from the Shallow Water 2006 Experiment

Geoacoustic inversion work has typically been carried out at frequencies below 1 kHz, assuming flat, horizontally stratified bottom models. Despite the relevance to Navy sonar systems many of which operate at mid-frequencies (1-10 kHz), limited inversion work has been carried out in this frequency band. This paper is an effort to demonstrate the viability of geoacoustic inversion using bottom loss data between 2 and 5 kHz. The acoustic measurements were taken during the Shallow Water 2006 Experiment off the coast of New Jersey. A half-space bottom model, with three parameters density, compressional wave speed, and attenuation, was used for inversion by fitting the model to data in the least-square sense. Inverted sediment sound speed and attenuation were compared with direct measurements and with inversion results using different techniques carried out in SW06. Inverted results of the present work are consistent with other measurements, considering the known spatial variability in this area. The observations and modeling results demonstrate that forward scattering from topographical changes is important at mid-frequencies and should be taken into account in sound propagation predictions and geoacoustic inversion. To cope with fine-scale topographic variability, measurement technique such as averaging over tracks may be necessary.     

Anomaly in high-frequency geoacoustic emission as a close earthquake precursor

One of the possible earthquake precursor mechanisms, namely, acoustic emission, is discussed. The phenomenon of acoustic emission consists in the emission of acoustic pulses due to the formation of microfaults and cracks that precede fracture of objects, rock collapse in mines, earthquakes, etc. By the example of the geoacoustic emission observation on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the area of the Avachinskaya Bay and by the analysis of anomalies of this emission that accompany major seismic events, it is shown that anomalous geoacoustic noise is generated by the stress produced in the medium prior to these events. The high-frequency range (4–11 kHz) is most informative for the observation of geoacoustic noise caused by the crack formation processes.     

偶极横波远探测典型地质体解释模型研究及应用

偶极横波远探测技术是近年来发展起来的一门重要的地球物理测井技术,它把常规测井技术的测量范围从井周1 m左右提高到几十米,在井旁裂缝和孔洞等地质体的探测中取得了较好的应用效果。本文根据偶极横波辐射声场和接收声场的互易性,提出了一种快速计算井旁地质体反射声场的解析方法——远场渐近解,实现井旁孔洞、裂缝等典型地质体反射声场的快速计算,分析了不同地质体的远探测成像特征,在此基础之上,与已有实际井资料结合建立了偶极横波远探测的解释模型,并将其应用于海上实际井旁地质体评价。应用结果表明,偶极横波远探测解释模型可用于海上缝洞型地层识别、井旁断层或断裂带判断等,效果明显。     

Measurement and modeling of three-dimensional sound intensity variations due to shallow-water internal waves

Broadband acoustic data (30-160 Hz) from the SWARM'95 experiment are analyzed to investigate acoustic signal variability in the presence of ocean internal waves. Temporal variations in the intensity of the received signals were observed over periods of 10 to 15 min. These fluctuations are synchronous in depth and are dependent upon the water column variability. They can be explained by significant horizontal refraction taking place when the orientation of the acoustic track is nearly parallel to the fronts of the internal waves. Analyses based on the equations of vertical modes and horizontal rays and on a parabolic equation in the horizontal plane are carried out and show interesting frequency-dependent behavior of the intensity. Good agreement is obtained between theoretical calculations and experimental data.     

Analysis and modeling of broadband airgun data influenced by nonlinear internal waves

To investigate acoustic effects of nonlinear internal waves, the two southwest tracks of the SWARM 95 experiment are considered. An airgun source produced broadband acoustic signals while a packet of large nonlinear internal waves passed between the source and two vertical linear arrays. The broadband data and its frequency range (10-180 Hz) distinguish this study from previous work. Models are developed for the internal wave environment, the geoacoustic parameters, and the airgun source signature. Parabolic equation simulations demonstrate that observed variations in intensity and wavelet time-frequency plots can be attributed to nonlinear internal waves. Empirical tests are provided of the internal wave-acoustic resonance condition that is the apparent theoretical mechanism responsible for the variations. Peaks of the effective internal wave spectrum are shown to coincide with differences in dominant acoustic wavenumbers comprising the airgun signal. The robustness of these relationships is investigated by simulations for a variety of geoacoustic and nonlinear internal wave model parameters.     

Evidence of Doppler-shifted Bragg scattering in the vertical plane by ocean surface waves

A set of narrowband tones (280, 370, 535, and 695 Hz) were transmitted by an acoustic source mounted on the ocean floor in 10 m deep water and received by a 64-element hydrophone line array lying on the ocean bottom 1.25 km away. Beamformer output in the vertical plane for the received acoustic tones shows evidence of Doppler-shifted Bragg scattering of the transmitted acoustic signals by the ocean surface waves. The received, scattered signals show dependence on the ocean surface wave frequencies and wavenumber vectors, as well as on acoustic frequencies and acoustic mode wavenumbers. Sidebands in the beamformer output are offset in frequency by amounts corresponding to ocean surface wave frequencies. Deviations in vertical arrival angle from specular reflection agree with those predicted by the Bragg condition through first-order perturbation theory using measured directional surface wave spectra and acoustic modes measured by the horizontal hydrophone array.     

利用浅海声场干涉条纹反演海底参数方法研究

浅海频散特性导致声场在距离-频率平面形成干涉条纹,该干涉条纹蕴含着声源以及海底信息。本文通过降噪、滤波等方法,提取船舶辐射噪声干涉条纹中距离域干涉准周期、波导不变量以及去扩展衰减系数(不考虑扩展损失后接收到噪声级随距离的衰减程度)三种特征量的观测值,基于无限均匀沉积层海底模型,采用简正波计算程序理论计算上述三种特征量作为拷贝,提出一种以模拟退火法作为搜索寻优策略的新的匹配反演海底参数的方法。海试数据处理结果表明,该方法反演估计所得海底密度、声速、衰减系数三参数用于浅海负跃层条件下的声场预报效果比较良好。