Migration of Backscatter Data from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Abstract

In studies of low-frequency reverberation within the marine environment, a central concern is the relationship between reverberation events and morphological features of the seafloor. A time-domain migration algorithm for the reverberation intensity field is developed that produces scattering coefficient maps coregistered with a bathymetry database. The algorithm is tailored to broadband transient sources with good range resolution, and was developed to analyze an extensive set of reverberation records from a 200-255 Hz source collected on the flanks of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The precise, sample-by-sample, tracking of wavefronts across elements 9f the bathymetry database that forms the foundation of the algorithms implementation, results in reverberation maps that show a clear and detailed correlation between scattering and morphology, with narrow scarp slopes consistently high- lighted. Environmentally induced asymmetries in transmission loss and incidence angle are exploited to break the inherent left-right ambiguity of the receiver array. Iterative migration, assuming a dominant dependence of backscatter on grazing angle, produces images, even from individual records, that show good ambiguity resolution. Results from multiple records corroborate the effectiveness of the ambiguity resolution and demonstrate the stability of the scattering coefficient estimates and the acoustic system.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 10, 1997
Accession Number
ADA320152

Entities

People

  • Alistar J. Harding
  • John A. Orcutt
  • Michael A. Hedlin

Organizations

  • University of California, San Diego

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustics
  • Algorithms
  • Backscattering
  • Broadband
  • Databases
  • Diffraction
  • Forward Scattering
  • Frequency
  • Grazing Angles
  • Grids
  • Intensity
  • Reverberation
  • Scattering
  • Seabed
  • Time Domain
  • Transmission Loss
  • Travel Time

Readers

  • Acoustical Oceanography.
  • Seismology