Deep seafloor arrivals in long range ocean acoustic propagation

Abstract

Ocean bottom seismometer observations during the long-range ocean acoustic propagation experiment in the North Pacific in 2004 showed robust, coherent, late arrivals that were not observed on hydrophones suspended 750m and more above the seafloor and that were not readily explained by ocean acoustic propagation models. The DSFA arrival pattern on the OBSs near 5000m depth are a delayed replica, by about two seconds, of the arrival pattern on the deepest element of the DVLA at 4250m depth (DVLA-4250). Using a conversion factor from the seafloor vertical particle velocity to seafloor acoustic pressure, we have quantitatively compared signal and noise levels at the OBSs and DVLA-4250. Ambient noise and DSFA signal levels at the OBSs are so quiet that if the DSFA arrivals were propagating through the water column, perhaps on an out-of-plane bottom-diffracted-surface-reflected (BDSR) path, they would not appear on single, unprocessed DVLA channels. Nonetheless arrival time and horizontal phase velocity analysis rules out BDSR paths as a mechanism for DSFAs. Whatever the mechanism, the measured DSFAs demonstrate that acoustic signals and noise from distant sources can appear with significant strength on the seafloor at depths well below the conjugate depth.