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ALOHA Cabled Observatory bottom pressure spectra
Frequency spectra from deep-ocean near-bottom acoustic measurements obtained contemporaneously with wind, wave, and seismic data are described and used to determine
the correlations among these data and to discuss possible causal relationships. Microseism energy appears to originate in four distinct regions relative to the hydrophone: wind waves above the sensors contribute microseism energy observed on the ocean floor; a fraction of this local wave energy propagates as seismic waves laterally, and provides a spatially integrated contribution to microseisms observed both in the ocean and on land; waves in storms generate microseism energy in deep water that travels as seismic waves to the sensor; and waves reflected from shorelines provide opposing waves that add to the microseism energy. Correlations of local wind speed with acoustic and seismic spectral time series suggest that the local Longuet-Higgins mechanism is visible in the acoustic spectrum from about 0.4 Hz to 80 Hz. Wind speed and acoustic levels at the hydrophone are poorly correlated below 0.4 Hz, implying that the microseism energy below 0.4 Hz is not typically generated by local winds. Correlation of ocean floor acoustic energy with seismic spectra from Oahu and with wave spectra near Oahu imply that wave reflections from Hawaiian coasts, wave interactions in the deep ocean near Hawaii, and storms far from Hawaii contribute energy to the seismic and acoustic spectra below 0.4 Hz. Wavefield directionality strongly influences the acoustic spectrum at frequencies below about 2 Hz, above which the acoustic levels imply near-isotropic surface wave directionality.
Disciplines
Marine geology, Physical oceanography
Keywords
ocean waves, acoustics, wind
Location
24N, 22S, -159E, -157W
Devices
broadband hydrophone (OAS Model E-2PD) was suspended 10 m above the ocean floor in 4720 m of water as part of a proof-of-concept package when the ACO was emplaced at Station ALOHA in February 2007
Data
File | Size | Format | Processing | Access | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hourly median PSD of bottom pressure after instrument correction (see figure A1 in Duennebier et al. 2012) | 26 Mo | NetCDF | Processed data | ||
This is the data archive with the original 5 minute resolution spectrograms in *.mat format, together with all the matlab scripts neede to make figures for the paper. | 708 Mo | matlab files | Processed data |