Abstract
Most sensors designed to measure volume acoustic backscatter over the entire water column have limited horizontal coverage. The 68-kHz cylindrical arrays of the U.S. Navy’s Toroidal Volume Search Sonar (TVSS), towed 80 m below the sea surface in 200-m water depth, have been used to measure volume backscatter over the entire water column with about 4.5 deg of angular resolution over a swath roughly 300 m wide. The data were analyzed to determine the volume acoustic backscattering strengths and cross sections, and the target strengths of (1) near-surface bubble clouds in the tow ship wake; (2) midcolumn zooplankton layers; and (3) near-bottom fish schools. Unlike previous acoustic studies of ship wakes, these results are obtained from data which sample the bubble field at a constant distance from the ship. Echo integration over a midcolumn scattering layer is used to assess the patchiness of zooplankton in the region. Target strengths of near-bottom fish schools are easily distinguished from the surrounding seafloor backscattering strengths. [Work sponsored by ONR-NRL (Contract No. N00014-96-1-G913).]
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