Range dependent sediment sound speed profile measurements using the image source method

Abstract

This paper presents a range dependent sediment sound speed profile measurement obtained using the image source method. This technique is based on the analysis of the seafloor reflected acoustic wave as a collection of image sources which positions are linked with the thick-nesses and the sound speed of the sediment stack. The data used were acquired by the NURC in 2009 during the Clutter09 experiment. The equipment used was an autonomous undersea vehicle towing a 1600–3500 Hz frequency band source and a 32 m horizontal line array of 32 hydrophones at 12m above the seabed. Under the assumption of locally range independent seabed properties, the moving horizontal array provides successive range independent sediment sound speed profiles along a track to obtain the range and depth dependent structure of the seafloor. Two key steps include recovery of the time-varying unknown array shape from the data and spatial filtering of the successive sound speed profiles. A comparison of the image source method result and seismic data along nearly the same 14 km track indicates that the seabed stratigraphy is correctly mapped by this method.