Overview of the New England shelf break acoustics (NESBA) experiment

Abstract

A joint ocean acoustics experiment was conducting at the southern edge of the New England Shelf in spring 2021 to investigate the sound propagation and scattering effects of physical oceanographic (PO) processes, marine geological (GEO) features, and biology (BIO) in the shelfbreak area. The experiment consisted of a network of sound sources, hydrophone arrays, and physical oceanography, and biological survey equipment was established. The environmental processes of particular interest include shelfbreak fronts, thermohaline intrusions, shelf water streamers, and internal waves, along with seafloor depressions and slopes, submarine canyons, and variable seabed properties (GEO), as well as fish schooling and shoaling (BIO). With fixed propagation paths, acoustic fluctuations can be correlated with environmental variations within the observation network with a temporal and spatial scales ranging from minutes to weeks and up to 30 km. One of the primary experiment objectives was on adaptive sampling and tracking of acoustic sensitivity “hot spots” to improve the real-time joint ocean acoustics and circulation modeling that was conducted on a research vessel in the field. This talk will review the design concept of this ocean acoustic network and provide an overview the experiment results. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]