Long-term noise interferometry analysis in the northeast Pacific Ocean

Passive measurements of marine seismic reflection surveys using Ocean Observatories Initiative hydrophones

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) provides continuous monitoring of acoustic fields at various locations in the northeast Pacific Ocean, among other types of data. The effects of marine seismic reflection surveys on the ambient soundscape in the vicinity of these hydrophones can be quantified by looking at OOI hydrophone data in conjunction with cruise documentation. Two seismic reflection surveys, MGL1905 and MGL2104, and measurements on three hydrophones at varying depths with 64 kHz sampling rates are considered. The seismic air guns are exhibited to raise the mean ambient sound by up to 30 dB over several one-third octave bands, where the impact varies significantly as a function of range, depth, and other factors. Effects can be observed hundreds of kilometers from the air gun arrays, and shots may be frequent enough that the ambient sound does not return to its pre-cruise background levels between shots. Although range is strongly correlated with these effects, metrics, such as sound exposure level or sound pressure level, can easily vary by 10 dB or more at the same range.

Rapid emergence of empirical Green's functions from cross-correlations of ambient sound on continental shelfa)

Applications of acoustic noise interferometry to passive remote sensing of the ocean rely on retrieval of empirical Green's functions (EGFs) from cross-correlations of ambient sound at spatially separated points. At ranges of tens of ocean depths, obtaining stable and accurate EGF estimates usually requires noise averaging periods of hours or days. Using data acquired in the Shallow Water 2006 experiment on the continental shelf off New Jersey, it is found that at ranges of 40-70 ocean depths, the EGFs can be retrieved with noise averaging times as short as 64 s. The phenomenon is observed for various receiver pairs but does not occur simultaneously in all azimuthal directions. The rapidly emerging EGFs have a wider frequency band and a richer normal mode content than the EGFs obtained in previous studies using long averaging times and are better suited for monitoring physical processes in the water column. Available acoustic and environmental data is examined to understand the conditions leading to rapid EGF emergence from diffuse noise. Strong intermittency is observed in the horizontal directionality of ambient sound. Rapid emergence of EGF in shallow-water waveguide is found to occur when the directionality of diffuse ambient noise is favorable.

Exploring surface source contributions to ocean ambient noise interferometry with airgun shots

A seismic reflection survey conducted directly over two bottom-mounted hydrophones in the north-east Pacific Ocean is used to explore how surface source locations affect ambient noise interferometry for the two hydrophones. The airgun shots are used as an approximation of an impulsive sound source at a discrete location, which allows us to investigate spatial contributions to the cross correlation between the two hydrophones. Simulated and experimental results are presented. The contributions to the cross correlations are explained by different reflections off the surface or bottom of the ocean, and a discussion about what can and cannot be inferred about the emergence to the Green's function is presented.

Enhancing cross correlations of ocean ambient noise in the time domain based on random matrix theory

Cross correlations of diffuse noise can be utilized to recover the time domain Green's function (TDGF) between two points. This principle allows for a variety of practical applications, such as seismic tomography, ocean thermometry, passive localization, etc. However, in the real ocean environment, loud interference noise sources usually bias the travel time estimates of the TDGF or result in poor recovery quality. To deal with this issue, a diffuse noise reconstruction approach is proposed to eliminate the influence of the strong interference noise by utilizing the time domain statistical property of ocean ambient noise recorded on single hydrophones with the help of random matrix theory. Simulation and experimental data analysis indicate that this algorithm can effectively extract the diffuse noise component from the ocean ambient noise field and retrieve the TDGF with a higher signal-to-noise ratio when coherent accumulation of cross correlations of the reconstructed diffuse noise is performed.

An overview of ambient sound using Ocean Observatories Initiative hydrophones

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) sensor network provides a unique opportunity to study ambient sound in the north-east Pacific Ocean. The OOI sensor network has five low frequency (Fs = 200 Hz) and six broadband (Fs = 64 kHz) hydrophones that have been recording ambient sound since 2015. In this paper, we analyze acoustic data from 2015 to 2020 to identify prominent features that are present in the OOI acoustic dataset. Notable features in the acoustic dataset that are highlighted in this paper include volcanic and seismic activity, rain and wind noise, marine mammal vocalizations, and anthropogenic sound, such as shipping noise. For all low frequency hydrophones and four of the six broadband hydrophones, we will present long-term spectrograms, median time-series trends for different spectral bands, and different statistical metrics about the acoustic environment. We find that 6-yr acoustic trends vary, depending on the location of the hydrophone and the spectral band that is observed. Over the course of six years, increases in spectral levels are seen in some locations and spectral bands, while decreases are seen in other locations and spectral bands. Last, we discuss future areas of research to which the OOI dataset lends itself.