Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / During the month of July 1987 an acoustical experiment was conducted by the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in the East Greenland Sea Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) . Ambient noise "hot spots" or concentrated areas of relatively high noise levels were found along the ice edge using a towed array. Ambient noise levels were obtained on 27 and 28 July using AN/SSQ-57A and AN/SSQ-57XN5 calibrated sonobuoys . The temperature structure of the area was determined using XBT (ship) and AXBT (P3C aircraft) buoys placed inside and outside the ice edge. The ice edge was determined from coincident satellite photos, 90 GHz microwave imagery and P3 radar ice edge maps. Weather data (sea state and wind speed and direction) were recorded on the ship. The data seem to indicate a correlation between the high ambient noise levels of the hot spots and the presence of a large topographically controlled mesoscale eddy located at the southeastern extent of the MIZ. / http://archive.org/details/spatialvariabili00bigg / Lieutenant, United States Navy

¡@The ocean ambient noise of coast is mainly influenced by sea waves, boats or ships, or human¡¦s coast activities. Among them, most of the ambient noise is from the breaking wave noise caused by wind, and its frequency range is quite wide (0.5~50 kHz). The breaking wave noise mechanism of surf zone is very complex, and has a variety of signal features. In this research, the location is at the Sizih Bay near Kaohsiung Harbor. Hydrophone was used to collect the noise and the wave motion process of surf zone was recorded simultaneously with a digital video camera. It was shown from the experiment results, as the wave evolved in the surf zone, it would eventually become unstable and collapsed, so a large amount of air would be trapped in water and forming bubble clouds. The oscillating bubble cloud from breaking wave would generate high frequency sound. The results also indicated that when breaking wave reached the location hydrophone, a wide band pulse sound was generated with a level as high as 120 dB. In the analysis of each frequency (1k, 2k, 3k, 4k, 5k Hz), due to the oscillating effects air bubbles after breaking wave, the noise level at 2~5k Hz were higher as compared to that without breaking wave passing the hydrophone. The last result was also validated by the time integral of the noise energy through out the wave evolution. In addition to the process of breaking waves and residual air bubbles under breaking waves contributing to the breaking wave source, for example discussed in the study breaking wave¡¦s period and breaking wave height, the results from these two studies found, when the longer the breaking wave period , the breaking wave SPL will be bigger with the longer the breaking wave period. And in the breaking wave height, when the breaking wave height much higher, breaking wave SPL will be much bigger too. And learned from these two conclusions , breaking wave periods and height will make the breaking waves source level caused by changes.

The study is based upon the Vertical Line Array (VLA) of the Asian Seas International Acoustic Experiment (ASIAEX), dated from May 3, 2001 to May 16, 2001, in which the ambient noise was measured and the six frequencies (including 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,200 Hz) were analyzed. The depth dependence of ambient noise levels in shallow water is not significant, and the fluctuations of ambient noise levels can be measured by Fourier analysis. With the similar analysis on static water pressure and temperature variation, the acoustic data has shown obvious in K1 and M2 tidal periods. The frequency dependence of ambient noise was also investigated, the lower frequency components, 50, 100, and 200 Hz, were mainly contributed from distant shipping noise, and the local wind was the dominating factor in higher frequencies such as 400, 800, and 1,200 Hz. This result was further verified by the increased levels at higher frequency due to the typhoon Cimaron during the experiment. Finally, the probability distribution function of ambient noise levels was calculated at each frequency, and was found the lower frequency ambient noise levels were not significantly affected by the typhoon as higher frequency. The threshold frequency of the ambient noise levels affected by the wind wave is about 400 Hz.

Ocean ambient noise is one of factors that can affect the performance of sonar and underwater communication system, it can degrade the performance of sonar system on listening or active detection, and also can affect the quality of underwater communication. Due to the variation of temperature and density in the ocean which make ambient noise has directionality. Beamforming can analyze the directionality of noise energy. Conventional beamforming is based on the assumption of plane wave sound field, so the energy from each angle is obtained by linear accumulation of every element. However plane wave assumption may not be satisfied because of the boundary interactions of sound propagation and energy attenuation of water column, therefore conventional beamforming may have poor beam resolution and SNR in applications. This research is to study of the influence of spatial coherence of ambient noise on beam resolution, and to improve the beam resolution by using the adaptive algorithm from the communication system theory. Firstly, simulations were performed to study spatial coherence between plane wave and non-plane wave in ambient noise, and the results were compared with beam resolution. This research also analyzes the influence of different conditions of noise spatial coherence on beamforming with ASIAEX data. The results showed that ambient noise has lower spatial coherence at high frequency, and the beamforming has poor beam resolution because of the lower spatial coherence in noise. Therefore, the adaptive beamforming were performed to improve the beam resolution, and compared with the conventional beamforming. The results showed that the highest improvement on beam resolution is 42.9 %, and increased SNR by 6 dB. On the other hand, the application of ASIAEX data show that, the highest improvement on beam resolution is 40.0 %, and increased SNR by 8 dB. The noise notch of ambient noise became more significant by increasing in beam resolution, and it also promoted the accuracy of analysis on noise directionality.

Passive tectonic margins, like the eastern North American margin (ENAM), represent the meeting of oceanic and continental material where no active deformation is occurring. The recent ENAM Community Seismic Experiment provides an opportunity to examine the crustal structure across the ENAM owing to the simultaneous deployment of offshore and onshore seismic instrumentation. Using Rayleigh wave phase and group velocities derived from ambient noise data, we invert for shear velocity across the ENAM. We observe a region of transitional crustal thicknesses that connects the oceanic and continental crusts. Associated with the transitional crust is a localized positive gravitational anomaly. Farther east, the East Coast magnetic anomaly (ECMA) is located at the intersection of the transitional and oceanic crusts. We propose that underplating of dense magmatic material along the bottom of the transitional crust is responsible for the gravitational anomaly and that the ECMA demarks the location of initial oceanic crustal formation.

No description available.

Traditional methods of imaging the Earth’s subsurface using seismic waves require an identifiable, impulsive source of seismic energy, for example an earthquake or explosive source. Naturally occurring, ambient seismic waves form an ever-present source of energy that is conventionally regarded as unusable since it is not impulsive. As such it is generally removed from seismic data and subsequent analysis. A new method known as seismic interferometry can be used to extract useful information about the Earth’s subsurface from the ambient noise wavefield. Consequently, seismic interferometry is an important new tool for exploring areas which are otherwise seismically quiet, such as the British Isles in which there are relatively few strong earthquakes. One of the possible applications of seismic interferometry is the ambient noise tomography method (ANT). ANT is a way of using interferometry to image subsurface seismic velocity variations using seismic (surface) waves extracted from the background ambient vibrations of the Earth. To date, ANT has been used to successfully image the Earth’s crust and upper-mantle on regional and continental scales in many locations and has the power to resolve major geological features such as sedimentary basins and igneous and metamorphic cores. In this thesis I provide a review of seismic interferometry and ANT and apply these methods to image the subsurface of north-west Scotland and the British Isles. I show that the seismic interferometry method works well within the British Isles and illustrate the usefulness of the method in seismically quiet areas by presenting the first surface wave group velocity maps of the Scottish Highlands and across the British Isles using only ambient seismic noise. In the Scottish Highlands, these maps show low velocity anomalies in sedimentary basins such as the Moray Firth and high velocity anomalies in igneous and metamorphic centres such as the Lewisian complex. They also suggest that the Moho shallows from south to north across Scotland, which agrees with previous geophysical studies in the region. Rayleigh wave velocity maps from ambient seismic noise across the British Isles for the upper and mid-crust show low velocities in sedimentary basins such as the Midland Valley, the Irish Sea and the Wessex Basin. High velocity anomalies occur predominantly in areas of igneous and metamorphic rock such as the Scottish Highlands, the Southern Uplands, North-West Wales and Cornwall. In the lower crust/upper mantle, the Rayleigh wave maps show higher velocities in the west and lower velocities in the east, suggesting that the Moho shallows generally from east to west across Britain. The extent of the region of higher velocity correlates well with the locations of British earthquakes, agreeing with previous studies that suggest British seismicity might be influenced by a mantle upwelling beneath the west of the British Isles. Until the work described in Chapter 6 of this thesis was undertaken in 2009, seismic interferometry was concerned with cross-correlating recordings at two receivers due to a surrounding boundary of sources, then stacking the cross-correlations to construct the inter-receiver Green’s function. A key element of seismic wave propagation is that of source-receiver reciprocity i.e. the same wavefield will be recorded if its source and receiver locations and component orientations are reversed. By taking the reciprocal of its usual form, in this thesis I show that the impulsive-source form of interferometry can also be used in the opposite sense: to turn any energy source into a virtual sensor. This new method is demonstrated by turning earthquakes in Alaska and south-west USA into virtual seismometers located beneath the Earth’s surface.

Ambient seismic noise from generation to its application for determination of sub-surface velocity structures is analyzed using continuous data recordings from the Swedish National Seismic Network (SNSN). The fundamental aim of the thesis is to investigate the applicability of precise velocity measurements from ambient noise data. In the ambient noise method, a form of interferometry, the seismic signal is constructed from long-term cross correlation of a random noise field. Anisotropy of the source distribution causes apparent time shifts (velocity bias) in the interferometric signals. The velocity bias can be important for the study area (Sweden) which has relatively small velocity variations. This work explores the entire data path, from investigating the noise-source distribution to a tomographic study of southern Sweden. A new method to invert for the azimuthal source distribution from cross-correlation envelopes is introduced. The method provides quantitative estimates of the azimuthal source distribution which can be used for detailed studies of source generation processes. An advantage of the method is that it uses few stations to constrain azimuthal source distributions. The results show that the source distribution is inhomogeneous, with sources concentrated along the western coast of Norway. This leads to an anisotropic noise field, especially for the secondary microseisms. The primary microseismic energy comes mainly from the northeast. The deduced azimuthal source distributions are used to study the level of expected bias invelocity estimates within the SNSN. The results indicate that the phase-velocity bias is less than 1% for most station pairs but can be larger for small values of the ratio of inter-station distance over wavelength. In addition, the nature of velocity bias due to a heterogeneous source field is investigated in terms of high and finite-frequency regimes. Graphical software for phase-velocity dispersion measurements based on new algorithms is presented and validated with synthetic data and by comparisons to other methods. The software is used for phase-velocity measurements, and deduced azimuthal source distributions are used for velocity-bias correction. Derived phase-velocity dispersion curves are used to construct two-dimensional velocity maps of southern Sweden at different periods based on travel-time tomography. The effect of the bias correction is investigated, and velocity maps are interpreted in comparison to previous geological and geophysical information.

A tomografia sísmica convencional apresenta baixa resolução em regiões de baixa sismicidade, como consequência, estudos prévios realizados na América do Sul não mapearam com clareza áreas menores do continente, como a região da bacia do Paraná. Para descrever a estrutura da crosta na região da bacia do Paraná, além de dados obtidos através da análise de terremotos andinos, foram utilizadas curvas de dispersão provenientes da correlação do ruído ambiental entre pares de estações sismográficas, técnica conhecida com Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT). Os mapas de velocidade de grupo obtidos correspondem bem com as principais províncias geológicas já conhecidas na América do Sul: baixas velocidades sob os Andes e bacias sedimentares e altas velocidades sob regiões cratônicas. As anomalias de alta velocidade encontradas para o manto superior, concordam com trabalhos prévios que confirmam a presença de um núcleo cratônico sob a bacia. Contudo, não é possível afirmar se tal núcleo está intacto ou não, principalmente devido resultados anteriores que mostram evidências da existência de um núcleo dividido por zonas de sutura. No entanto, a tomografia de ondas de superfície não possui resolução para confirmar este modelo. Como as etapas do processamento de dados são bem definidas e independentes, à medida que novas estações forem instaladas com o avanço do projeto BRASIS, novos caminhos serão adicionadas à base inicial, aumentando a resolução e confiabilidade dos resultados futuros. / Conventional seismic tomography is known to have poor resolution in regions of low seismicity, therefore, studies carried out in South America did not mapped clearly smaller areas of the continent, for example the region of the Parana basin. To describe the of the crustal structure of the Parana basin, in addition to data obtained by analysis of Andean earthquakes, we used dispersion curves from ambient noise correlation between pairs of seismographic stations, a technique known by Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT). The obtained group velocity maps correspond well with the main geological provinces already known in South America: low velocities under the Andes and sedimentary basins and high velocities in cratonic regions. The high velocity anomalies encountered in the upper mantle, agree with previous studies that confirm the presence of a nucleus in the cratonic basin. However, it is not possible to say whether such a nucleus is intact or not, mainly because previous results showing evidence of the existence of a nucleus divided by suture zones. Nevertheless, surface wave tomography has no resolution to confirm this model. The steps of data processing of this work are well defined and independent, thus, as new stations will being deployed with the advance of BRASIS Project, new paths will be added to the database, increasing the resolution and reliability of the future results.

Soundscape Ecology, the physical combination of sounds at a particular time and place, is a rapidly growing field. As acoustic technology advances, several possible future uses of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), such as biodiversity counts and monitoring of habitat health, are being explored. This thesis is divided into two chapters; each is a stand-alone paper. The first chapter provides a review of soundscape ecology, ambient sound, current recording methods and data analysis used in PAM studies, and identifies several major future recommendations for the field. One of these recommendations is to standardize recording methods and indices used during analysis in long-term studies. The second chapter analyzes a 55-minute continuous recording on a coral reef in Tunicate Cove, Belize in 1996 by Professor P. Lobel. This recording was then subsampled with several intermittent recording schedules to explore the amount of acoustic information lost as periods of active and inactive recording vary. The continuous recording consisted of a high frequency band (3-4 kHz), which may correspond to abiotic sounds, and a low frequency band (0.1-0.5 kHz), which generally corresponds to biotic sounds. Two recording schedules, 30 seconds every 4 minutes and 2 minutes every 10 minutes, were significantly correlated with the continuous recording. The statistical significance of the other five recording schedules varied among the three parameters tested in this study (average power (dB), average entropy, and aggregate entropy).