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 Hz͒ 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.
During the Woodlark Basin seismic experiment in eastern Papua New Guinea (1999-2000), an ocean-bottom seismic array recorded marine mammal vocalizations along with target earthquake signals. The array consisted of 14 instruments, 7 of which were three-component seismometers with a fourth component hydrophone. They were deployed at 2.0-3.2 km water depth and operated from September 1999 through February 2000. While whale vocalizations were recorded throughout the deployment, this study focuses on 3 h from December 21, 1999 during which the signals are particularly clear. The recordings show a blue whale song composed of a three-unit phrase. That song does not match vocalization characteristics of other known Pacific subpopulations and may represent a previously undocumented blue whale song. Animal tracking and source level estimates are obtained with a Bayesian inversion method that generates probabilistic source locations. The Bayesian method is augmented to include travel time estimates from seismometers and hydrophones and acoustic signal amplitude. Tracking results show the whale traveled northeasterly over the course of 3 h, covering approximately 27 km. The path followed the edge of the Woodlark Basin along a shelf that separates the shallow waters of the Trobriand platform from the deep waters of the basin.
Several problems of current interest involve elastic bottom range-dependent ocean environments with buried or earthquake-type sources, specifically oceanic T-wave propagation studies and interface wave related analyses. Additionally, observed deep shadow-zone arrivals are not predicted by ray theoretic methods, and attempts to model them with fluid-bottom parabolic equation solutions suggest that it may be necessary to account for elastic bottom interactions. In order to study energy conversion between elastic and acoustic waves, current elastic parabolic equation solutions must be modified to allow for seismic starting fields for underwater acoustic propagation environments. Two types of elastic self-starter are presented. An explosive-type source is implemented using a compressional self-starter and the resulting acoustic field is consistent with benchmark solutions. A shear wave self-starter is implemented and shown to generate transmission loss levels consistent with the explosive source. Source fields can be combined to generate starting fields for source types such as explosions, earthquakes, or pile driving. Examples demonstrate the use of source fields for shallow sources or deep ocean-bottom earthquake sources, where down slope conversion, a known T-wave generation mechanism, is modeled. Self-starters are interpreted in the context of the seismic moment tensor.
Oceanic T-waves are earthquake signals that originate when elastic waves interact with the fluid-elastic interface at the ocean bottom and are converted to acoustic waves in the ocean. These waves propagate long distances in the Sound Fixing and Ranging (SOFAR) channel and tend to be the largest observed arrivals from seismic events. Thus, an understanding of their generation is important for event detection, localization, and source-type discrimination. Recently benchmarked seismic self-starting fields are used to generate elastic parabolic equation solutions that demonstrate generation and propagation of oceanic T-waves in range-dependent underwater acoustic environments. Both downward sloping and abyssal ocean range-dependent environments are considered, and results demonstrate conversion of elastic waves into water-borne oceanic T-waves. Examples demonstrating long-range broadband T-wave propagation in range-dependent environments are shown. These results confirm that elastic parabolic equation solutions are valuable for characterization of the relationships between T-wave propagation and variations in range-dependent bathymetry or elastic material parameters, as well as for modeling T-wave receptions at hydrophone arrays or coastal receiving stations.
The 1995 SWARM experiment collected high quality environmental and acoustic data. One goal was to investigate nonlinear internal wave effects on acoustic signals. This study continues an investigation of broadband airgun data from the two southwest propagation tracks. One notable feature of the experiment is that a packet of nonlinear internal waves crossed these tracks at two different incidence angles. Observed variations for the lower angle track were modeled using two-dimensional parabolic equation calculations in a previous study. The higher incidence angle is close to critical for total internal reflection, suggesting that acoustic horizontal refraction occurs as nonlinear internal waves traverse this track. Three-dimensional adiabatic mode parabolic equation calculations reproduce principal features of observed acoustic intensity variations. The correspondence between data and simulation results provides strong evidence of the actual occurrence of horizontal refraction due to nonlinear internal waves.
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