Use of Acoustics in Localizing Under-Ice Oil Spills.

Because of the development of oil resources in the Arctic, it has become necessary to devise methods of dealing with accidental spills of oil beneath and near sea ice. One of the first steps involved in cleaning up an under-ice oil spill is determining its exact location. If a means of rapidly locat...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Francois,R E, Wen,T
Other Authors: WASHINGTON UNIV SEATTLE APPLIED PHYSICS LAB
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1983
Subjects:
Snow
Ice and Permafrost
Acoustic Detection and Detectors
*Oil spills
*Acoustic detection
Sea ice
Underice
Surface properties
Underwater sound signals
Acoustic scattering
Backscattering
Underwater sound equipment
Sonar arrays
Electroacoustic transducers
Arctic
Ice
permafrost
Online Access:http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA133709
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA133709
Description
Summary:Because of the development of oil resources in the Arctic, it has become necessary to devise methods of dealing with accidental spills of oil beneath and near sea ice. One of the first steps involved in cleaning up an under-ice oil spill is determining its exact location. If a means of rapidly locating an under-ice oil spill can be developed, appropriate recovery techniques that capitalize on that information can then be considered. This report describes a study undertaken to determine the feasibility of using underwater acoustics to specifically locate an under-ice oil spill whose general position is known. The first step was to measure the surface backscattering strength of sea ice at 100-300 kHz at low grazing angles. The results were then used to calculate the distance at which oil spills should be detectable. The design of an operational survey system should be relatively straightforward, once the parameters of the system are defined. (Author)

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