How would you go about mapping sea floor when visual methods are impaired with the inability of light to penetrate water? Use a different method to measure it, using a wavelength that can penetrate the depth of the sea. Sound waves can penetrate the deepest depths of the ocean using special equipment produced by the military and commercial companies such as sonar to measure the ocean bottom.
What is sonar?
Sonar which is short for Sound Navigation and Ranging, uses sound waves to calculate distances from objects in water. This information can be used to produce maps of lake bed or sea floor. Sound waves are produced from an active sonar transducer. The sound wave travels outwards from the transducer and bounces off objects on the sea floor. These waves come back to the transducer and if it is specially equipped can measure the change in strength and time it takes to return with a computer. The time between the emission and reception of the wave will make it possible to calculate the distance and angle of the object that the sound wave bounced off of. (NOAA, 2014.).
There are two different types of sonar, active which uses sound to create detailed images by sending a wave out and then recording when it comes back, and passive sonar, which is used to detect sound that is not produced by its own transducer. Active sonar will be covered in more depth later in this paper.
Passive is mostly used for listening purposes. It is used by the military, as making no sound in submarines is a highly advantageous position to be in underwater. Also scientific research that is done by listening to objects in the ocean. Passive sonar cannot be used to locate an object, only listen, unless another passive array is used for a seco...
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...es in mapping quality using Side-Scan Sonar and multibeam sonar. (NOAA, 2004.)
Multibeam Sonar
Multibeam Sonar also known as Swath echosounders are used for bathymetric coverage and nature of the sea bed for a survey area. It uses the time it takes for the sound wave to return to produce three dimensional characteristics and depths for the sea floor also known as bathymetry. They were developed by the US Navy and General Instrument to provide aids to underwater navigation for their submarine fleet. It is usually a hull mounted sonar system that provides a swath area coverage of the sea floor. The coverage of the swath is dependent on the depth of the water below the ships sonar system, usually two to four times the depth of the water (NOAA, n.d.). Multibeam uses many transducers to produce different wavelengths along the swath so that the returning wave can be
Archaeology is a continuously evolving field where there is a constant stream of new branches and excavation methods. Due to the influx of new technologies and innovations in recent decades, archaeologists have been able to excavate previously inaccessible areas. For example, new diving equipment and tools such as proton magnetometers, side-scan sonar, sub-bottom profiler, and miniature submarines have allowed archaeologists to dive into the deep depths of the ocean. As a result, the branch of underwater archaeology was created to search for shipwrecks and other artifacts on the ocean floor. Underwater archaeology’s role has increased in recent years as it allows archaeologists to more accurately interpret the past by supplementing information gained through traditional land excavations.
Ultrasounds use the same concepts that allow sonar on boats to see the bottom of the o...
waves were reflected back to the transducer as they crossed interfaces of different acoustic impedance. More simply, the ultrasound bounced off the
Review: The opportunity and endeavor of exploring the Earth’s oceans can reap great rewards for mankind and unravel many of the mysteries that the Earth has left to discover.
In our lifetime, the ocean has remained untamed and unexplored. “Modern Day” technology has only been able to come so far in venturing out to sea and to the world below the surface. However, in the past 10 years this has all been changed. With research being done throughout the world studying the movement and anatomy of fish, the gap between the surface and the sea floor could be speedily lessening. For years humans have marveled at the speed and grace of most marine life. The lack of drag, the force propulsion, and the ability to live at such impossible depths have been forever the envy of submarines and sea explorers. After years of observing these incredible functions, researchers are finally beginning to mimic and apply these characteristics to marine technology. These robo-fish hold the potential to make underwater exploration far more accessible, safer, and more efficient due to their naturalistic design.
Hackmann, Willem Dirk. “SONAR.” Encyclopedia of World War II. Vol. 2. New York: Facts on File, 2007. Modern World History Online. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. .
A transducer is a mechanism that changes one form of energy to another form. A toaster is a transducer that turns electricity into heat; a loudspeaker is a transducer that changes electricity into sound. Likewise, an ultrasound transducer changes electricity voltage into ultrasound waves, and vice versa. This is possible because of the principle of piezoelectricity, which states that some materials (ceramics, quartz, and others) produce a voltage when deformed by an applied pressure. Conversely, piezoelectricity also results in production of a pressure whe...
Sounds are produced by the vibrations of material objects, and travel as a result of
Ocean currents are horizontal or vertical movement of both surface and deep water throughout the world’s oceans (Briney, n.d.). The primary generating forces are wind and differences in water density caused by variations in temperature and salinity. Currents generated by these forces are modified by factors such as the depth of the water, ocean floor topography and deflection by the rotation of the Earth. Horizontal currents are wind driven, fast moving and carries small amount of water; while, vertical currents are slow moving, density driven and carries large bodies of water. In this paper I will describe horizontal and vertical currents, their importance and some of the tools used to measure ocean currents.
Sound waves take the form of compressional waves and are caused by vibrations. Sound waves are distinguished by their speed, pitch, loudness and quality (timbre) (Lapp, 2003). There are a few parts of sound waves that we should be familiar with to better be able to understand the physics of music. The crest is the highest point of a wave, while the trough is the lowest. The wavelength of a wave is the distance between two adjacent parts of a wave, like from crest to crest, or from trough to trough....
2013. The. Recording Manual - Construction. [online] Available at: http://www.johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Titles/Acoustics3.htm [Accessed: 25 Nov 2013].
Medical ultrasound mechanisms produce ultrasound waves and accord the imitated echoes. Brightness mode (B mode) is the frank mode that is normally used.[2] The B mode gives a two dimensional (2D) black and white picture that depends on the anatomical locale of the slice. The body can be imaged in disparate planes reliant on the locale of the probe. These slender slices are of less than 1 mm every single and can be sagittal, coronal, transverse, or oblique. Sound waves are emitted from piezoelectric crystals from the ultrasound transducer. Piezoelectric crystals are fabricated from physical that adjustments mechanical signals to mechanical vibrations and adjustments mechanical vibrations to mechanical signals.[2] As ultrasound waves bypass across assorted body tissues, they are imitated back to the transducer crafting an picture on the ultrasound screen.[3] Aural impedance is described as the confrontation for propagation of ultrasound waves. This varies according to the density of the physical ultrasound passes through. After the physical is extra solid, nex...
Acoustics is a science that deals with the study of sound. It is known to be one of the branches of physics; studying oscillations and sound waves from the lowest to high frequencies. Acoustics is known to be one of the oldest sciences, and dates back to ancient times as people had the need to understand the nature of speech and hearing. The main reason acoustics was discovered and is one of the oldest sciences is because of the need for the knowledge of the sounds of music and musical instruments. Pythagoras, an ancient mathematician, was the first person to ever find out that tone height corresponds to the length of the sting or tube. While Aristotle, Pythagoras apprentice at the time, helped more to explain that an echo is created as the sound reflection from obstacles.
Seismic waves are energy waves that are caused by the sudden breaking of rock in the earth’s crust, or because of an explosion caused by man; these waves travel through the earth and can be recorded by seismographs. There are many different types of seismic waves, but the two main types are surface waves, which can only move on the earth’s surface like a sort of ocean wave, and body waves, that travel through the earth’s innermost layers. Earthquakes make up both surface and body waves. Both surface and body waves can be broken down to two main