Skip to main content

Oceanography in 2025 Proceedings of a Workshop (2009) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

Seismic Oceanography: Imaging Oceanic Finestructure with Reflection Seismology--W. Steven Holbrook
Pages 157-162

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 157...
... Reflection seismology is a standard technique used in industry and academia for imaging the solid earth using reflected sound waves. We have recently discovered that finestructure -- temperature variations at vertical scales of meters to tens of meters caused by internal waves, intrusions, and mixing processes -- can be imaged quite well with seismic reflections at 10-150 Hz -- the frequency range commonly used in seismic reflection profiling.
Read the entire page →
From page 158...
... dominates, to first order these images can be thought of as maps of dc/dz at vertical scales of ~10 m. Our group and others have produced fascinating images of finestructure in numerous ocean settings, including fronts, Meddies (Figure 2)
Read the entire page →
From page 159...
... These observations raise the intriguing possibility that seismic reflection profiling may become a tool of great usefulness to physical oceanographers in observing and characterizing ocean structure and dynamics. Note that SO differs from traditional acoustic oceanography in several ways, including the dominant sound frequencies (and thus the resolution)
Read the entire page →
From page 160...
... Specialized equipment is necessary at sea; sound sources are usually pneumatic sources that release high-pressure air into the ocean, and the reflected wavefield is recorded on a kilometers-long hydrophone streamer towed behind the vessel. Advantages and disadvantages of the technique The principal advance that SO offers is the ability to track oceanic finestructure laterally at relatively high spatial resolution: the typical lateral sampling of seismic images is 6.25 m.
Read the entire page →
From page 161...
... ; and •  willingness on the part of funding agencies to invest in this a methodology by supporting focused field and laboratory work. A large extant database of seismic reflection profiles contains useful information that should be mined, but substantial progress needs joint PO/seismic field programs that collect state of the art data at the same time and place.
Read the entire page →
From page 162...
... 2005. Ocean Internal Wave Spectra Inferred from Seismic Re flection Transects.
Read the entire page →

Key Terms

  • internal wave
  • oceanic finestructure
  • reflection profiling
  • wave energy
  • internal waves

  • sound speed
  • seismic oceanography
  • ocean structure
  • reflection seismology
  • acoustic reflections

  • bitmap image
  • schlieren images
  • ocean internal
  • characterizing ocean
  • wave packets

  • typical lateral
  • boundary mixing
  • image courtesy
  • reflection images
  • horizontal wavenumber

  • observations raise
  • acoustic oceanography
  • turbulence dissipation
  • intriguing possibility
  • sound frequencies

  • stirring create
  • advantages offered
  • create temperature
  • mesoscale eddies
  • usually pneumatic


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
    More information on Chapter Skim is available.