Shallow-water sound transmission measurements on the New Jersey continental shelf

Calibrated acoustic measurements were made under calm sea state conditions on the New Jersey shelf near the AM COR 6010 borehole, a surveyed area with known geophysical properties. The experiment was conducted in 73 m water with supporting measurements of salinity, temperature, and sound speed. Acoustic measurements were obtained with a vertical array of 24 hydrophones spaced equally at 2.5m intervals; one of which was near the bottom. A source towed at 1/2 the water depth transmitted one of two sets of four tones spaced between 50 and 600 Hz for each run to ranges of 4 and 26 km. The data were processed with both a Hankel transform and a high resolution Doppler technique to yield horizontal wave-number spectrum at several depths. Results were obtained along both constant and gradually varying depth profiles. Similar modal interference patterns were observed at the lower frequencies. The constant depth-profile radial results were compared to calculations performed with several shallow water acoustic models using geoacoustic profiles derived from geophysical parameters and shear wave inversion methods. Calculated and measured sound transmission results were found to agree.