Fundamentals of Ocean Acoustics

Download or read book Fundamentals of Ocean Acoustics written by L. Brekhovskikh and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The continents of our planet have already been exploited to a great extent. Therefore man is turning his sight to the vast spaciousness of the ocean whose resources - mineral, biological, energetic, and others - are just beginning to be used. The ocean is being intensively studied. Our notions about the dynam ics of ocean waters and their role in forming the Earth's climate as well as about the structure of the ocean bottom have substantially changed during the last two decades. An outstanding part in this accelerated exploration of the ocean is played by ocean acoustics. Only sound waves can propagate in water over large distances. Practically all kinds of telemetry, communication, location, and re mote sensing of water masses and the ocean bottom use sound waves. Propa gating over thousands of kilometers in the ocean, they bring information on earthquakes, eruptions of volcanoes, and distant storms. Projects using acoustical tomography systems for exploration of the ocean are presently be ing developed. Each of these systems will allow us to determine the three-di mensional structure of water masses in regions as large as millions of square kilometers.