Seismic reflection imaging of water mass boundaries in the Norwegian Sea

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Nandi, Papia, Holbrook, W. Steven, Pearse, Scott, Paramo, Pedro, Schmitt, Raymond W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2004
• Subjects: Norwegian Sea
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/3317

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 31 (2004): L23311, doi:10.1029/2004GL021325. Results from the first joint temperature and seismic reflection study of the ocean demonstrate that water mass boundaries can be acoustically mapped. Multichannel seismic profiles collected in the Norwegian Sea show reflections between the Norwegian Atlantic Current and Norwegian Sea Deep Water. The images were corroborated with a dense array of expendable bathythermographs and expendable conductivity-temperature depth profiles delineating sharp temperature gradients over vertical distances of ∼5–15 m at depths over which reflections occur. Fine structure from both thermohaline intrusions and internal wave strains is imaged. Low-amplitude acoustic reflections correspond to temperature changes as small as 0.03°C implying that seismic reflection methods can image even weak fine structure. Supported by NSF grants OCE-0221366 and OCE-0337289 to Holbrook.