Abstract
A deeply towed instrument system has made near-bottom geophysical surveys of patches of the abyssal sea floor. The acoustic instrumentation includes a narrow beam 40 kHz echo sounder, a 110 kHz side-looking sonar system, a 4 kHz seismic profiling system, and an acoustic transponder system for precision navigation. These sensors have provided us with an abundance of qualitativedata on the considerable small-scale variability of sea floor topography, acoustic backscattering, and acoustic reflectivity, from a wide range of abyssal environments. A capability for digital processing of 4 kHz seismic profiler data has recently been added: preliminary quantitative results from the northern Samoan Passage region suggest spatial variations (in 4 kHz bottom reflectivity) of over 10 dB for distances as small as 100 m.
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Lonsdale, P.F., Tyce, R.C., Spiess, F.N. (1974). Near-Bottom Acoustic Observations of Abyssal Topography and Reflectivity. In: Hampton, L. (eds) Physics of Sound in Marine Sediments. Marine Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0838-6_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0838-6_12
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