The SOFAR channel (short for sound fixing and ranging channel), or deep sound channel (DSC), [1] is a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and low frequency sound waves within the channel may travel thousands of miles before dissipating. An example was reception of coded signals generated by the US Navy-chartered ocean surveillance vessel Cory Chouest off Heard Island, located in the southern Indian Ocean (between Africa, Australia and Antarctica), by hydrophones in portions of all five major ocean basins and as distant as the North Atlantic and North Pacific. [2] [3] [4] [note 1]
This phenomenon is an important factor in ocean surveillance. [5] [6] [7] The deep sound channel was discovered and described independently by Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel at Columbia University and Leonid Brekhovskikh at the Lebedev Physics Institute in the 1940s. [8] [9] In testing the concept in 1944 Ewing and Worzel hung a hydrophone from Saluda, a sailing vessel assigned to the Underwater Sound Laboratory, with a second ship setting off explosive charges up to 900 nmi (1,000 mi; 1,700 km) away. [10] [11]
Temperature is the dominant factor in determining the speed of sound in the ocean. In areas of higher temperatures (e.g. near the ocean surface), there is higher sound speed. Temperature decreases with depth, with sound speed decreasing accordingly until temperature becomes stable and pressure becomes the dominant factor. The axis of the SOFAR channel lies at the point of minimum sound speed at a depth where pressure begins dominating temperature and sound speed increases. This point is at the bottom of the thermocline and the top of the deep isothermal layer and thus has some seasonal variance. Other acoustic ducts exist, particularly in the upper mixed layer, but the ray paths lose energy with either surface or bottom reflections. In the SOFAR channel, low frequencies, in particular, are refracted back into the duct so that energy loss is small and the sound travels thousands of miles. [9] [12] [13] Analysis of Heard Island Feasibility Test data received by the Ascension Island Missile Impact Locating System hydrophones at an intermediate range of 9,200 km (5,700 mi; 5,000 nmi) from the source found "surprisingly high" signal-to-noise ratios, ranging from 19 to 30 dB, with unexpected phase stability and amplitude variability after a travel time of about 1 hour, 44 minutes and 17 seconds. [3]
Within the duct sound waves trace a path that oscillates across the SOFAR channel axis so that a single signal will have multiple arrival times with a signature of multiple pulses climaxing in a sharply defined end. [10] [note 2] That sharply defined end representing a near axial arrival path is sometimes termed the SOFAR finale and the earlier ones the SOFAR symphony. [14] [15] Those effects are due to the larger sound channel in which ray paths are contained between the surface and critical depth. [note 3] Critical depth is the point below the sound speed minimum axis where sound speed increases to equal the maximum speed above the axis. Where the bottom lies above critical depth the sound is attenuated, as is any ray path intersecting the surface or bottom. [16] [17] [18] [note 4]
The channel axis varies most with its location reaching the surface and disappearing at high latitudes (above about 60°N or below 60°S) but with sound then traveling in a surface duct. A 1980 report by Naval Ocean Systems Center gives examples in a study of a great circle acoustic path between Perth, Australia and Bermuda with data at eight locations along the path. At both Perth and Bermuda the sound channel axis occurs at a depth of around 1,200 m (3,937 ft). Where the path meets the Antarctic Convergence at 52º south there is no deep sound channel but a 30 m (98 ft) in depth surface duct and a shallow sound channel at 200 m (656 ft). As the path turns northward, a station at 43º south, 16º east showed the profile reverting to the SOFAR type at 800 m (2,625 ft). [19] [20]
The first practical application began development during World War II when the United States Navy began experimenting and implementing the capability to locate the explosion of a SOFAR bomb used as a distress signal by downed pilots. The difference in arrival times of the source at an unknown location and known locations allowed computation of the source's general location. [10] The arrival times form hyperbolic lines of position similar to LORAN. The reverse, detection of timed signals from known shore positions at an unknown point, allowed calculation of the position at that point. That technique was given the name of SOFAR backwards: RAFOS. RAFOS is defined in the 1962 edition of The American Practical Navigator among the hyperbolic navigation systems. [10] [21] [22]
The early applications relied on fixed shore stations, often termed SOFAR stations. Several became acoustic research facilities as did the Bermuda SOFAR Station which was involved in the Perth to Bermuda experiment. [19] [20] The records of the Bermuda station are maintained by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). [23] In the recent past SOFAR sources were deployed for special purposes in the RAFOS application. One such system deployed bottom moored sources off Cape Hatteras, off Bermuda and one on a seamount to send three precisely timed signals a day to provide approximately five-kilometre (3.1 mi; 2.7 nmi) accuracy. [24]
The first application quickly became of intense interest to the Navy for reasons other than locating downed air crews. A Navy decision in 1949 led to studies by 1950 recommending the passive sonar potential of the SOFAR channel be exploited for the Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) effort. The recommendation included that $10 million a year be spent on research and development of the system. By 1951 a test array had proven the concept and by 1952 additional stations were ordered for the Atlantic. The first major exploitation of the SOFAR channel was for ocean surveillance in a classified program that led to the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). That system remained classified from inception until the fixed systems were augmented by mobile arrays to become the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System with the mission and nature of the system declassified in 1991. [7] [25] [note 5]
Earthquake monitoring through the use of SOSUS after limited civilian access was granted to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1991 revealed ten times the number of offshore earthquakes with better localization than with land-based sensors. The SOSUS detection could sense earthquakes at about magnitude two rather than magnitude four. The system detected seafloor spreading and magma events in the Juan de Fuca Ridge in time for research vessels to investigate. As a result of that success, PMEL developed its own hydrophones for deployment worldwide to be suspended in the SOFAR channel by a float and anchor system. [26]
Mysterious low-frequency sounds, attributed to fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), are a common occurrence in the channel. Scientists believe fin whales may dive down to this channel and sing to communicate with other fin whales many kilometers away. [28]
The novel The Hunt for Red October describes the use of the SOFAR channel in submarine detection.
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or under the surface of the water, such as other vessels.
Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) was the original name for a submarine detection system based on passive sonar developed by the United States Navy to track Soviet submarines. The system's true nature was classified with the name and acronym SOSUS classified as well. The unclassified name Project Caesar was used to cover the installation of the system and a cover story developed regarding the shore stations, identified only as a Naval Facility (NAVFAC), being for oceanographic research. The name changed to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) in 1985, as the fixed bottom arrays were supplemented by the mobile Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) and other new systems. The commands and personnel were covered by the "oceanographic" term until 1991 when the mission was declassified. As a result, the commands, Oceanographic System Atlantic and Oceanographic System Pacific became Undersea Surveillance Atlantic and Undersea Surveillance Pacific, and personnel were able to wear insignia reflecting the mission.
USNS Mizar (MA-48/T-AGOR-11/T-AK-272) was a vessel of the United States Navy. She was named after the star Mizar.
Bloop was an ultra-low-frequency, high amplitude underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1997. By 2012, earlier speculation that the sound originated from a marine animal was replaced by NOAA's description of the sound as being consistent with noises generated via non-tectonic cryoseisms originating from glacial movements such as ice calving, or through seabed gouging by ice.
Naval Facility Bermuda, or NAVFAC Bermuda, was the operational shore terminus for one of the Atlantic Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) array systems installed during the first phase of system installation and in commission from 1955 until 1992. The true surveillance mission was classified and covered by "oceanographic research" until the mission was declassified in 1991. The system's acoustic data was collected after the facility was decommissioned until the system was routed to the central processing facility, the Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF), Dam Neck, Virginia in 1994.
Ocean acoustic tomography is a technique used to measure temperatures and currents over large regions of the ocean. On ocean basin scales, this technique is also known as acoustic thermometry. The technique relies on precisely measuring the time it takes sound signals to travel between two instruments, one an acoustic source and one a receiver, separated by ranges of 100–5,000 kilometres (54–2,700 nmi). If the locations of the instruments are known precisely, the measurement of time-of-flight can be used to infer the speed of sound, averaged over the acoustic path. Changes in the speed of sound are primarily caused by changes in the temperature of the ocean, hence the measurement of the travel times is equivalent to a measurement of temperature. A 1 °C (1.8 °F) change in temperature corresponds to about 4 metres per second (13 ft/s) change in sound speed. An oceanographic experiment employing tomography typically uses several source-receiver pairs in a moored array that measures an area of ocean.
In oceanography, a sofar bomb, occasionally referred to as a sofar disc, is a long-range position-fixing system that uses impulsive sounds in the deep sound channel of the ocean to enable pinpointing of the location of ships or crashed planes. The deep sound channel is ideal for the device, as the minimum speed of sound at that depth improves the signal's traveling ability. A position is determined from the differences in arrival times at receiving stations of known geographic locations. The useful range from the signal sources to the receiver can exceed 3,000 miles (4,800 km).
Project Artemis was a United States Navy acoustics research and development experiment from the late 1950s into the mid 1960s to test a potential low-frequency active sonar system for ocean surveillance. The at sea testing began in 1960 after research and development in the late 1950s. The project's test requirement was to prove detection of a submerged submarine at 500 nmi. The experiment, covering a number of years, involved a large active element and a massive receiver array.
Underwater acoustics is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water, its contents and its boundaries. The water may be in the ocean, a lake, a river or a tank. Typical frequencies associated with underwater acoustics are between 10 Hz and 1 MHz. The propagation of sound in the ocean at frequencies lower than 10 Hz is usually not possible without penetrating deep into the seabed, whereas frequencies above 1 MHz are rarely used because they are absorbed very quickly.
USS Flamingo (AM-32) was a Lapwing-class minesweeper built for the United States Navy near the end of World War I. After service overseas clearing mines after the Armistice, the ship was laid up until 1922 when she was transferred to the United States Department of Commerce for use by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Renamed USC&GS Guide, the ship operated as a survey vessel along the West Coast of the United States for 17 years, making significant contributions to navigation, hydrographic surveying, and oceanography. In June 1941, Guide was transferred back to the Navy, converted into a salvage ship, and renamed USS Viking (ARS-1). As Viking, she worked primarily from bases in California until 1953, when she was sold for scrapping.
USS Aeolus (ARC-3) began service as USS Turandot (AKA-47), an Artemis-class attack cargo ship built by the Walsh-Kaiser Co., Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1954 she was converted into a cable repair ship to support Project Caesar, the unclassified name for installation of the Sound Surveillance System SOSUS. Aeolus was the first of two ships, the other being USS Thor (ARC-4), to be converted into cable ships. Aeolus performed cable duties for nearly thirty years, from 1955 to 1973 as a commissioned ship and from 1973 until 1985 as the civilian crewed USNS Aeolus (T-ARC-3) of the Military Sealift Command (MSC). The ship was retired in 1985 and sunk as an artificial reef in 1988.
RV Sir Horace Lamb was a Navy owned former mine warfare vessel assigned to the Columbia University, Geophysical Field Station research facility in Bermuda for acoustic research operating from 1959 to 1976. The ship was the former USS Redpoll (AMS-57/YMS-294), a YMS-1-class minesweeper of the YMS-135 subclass built and commissioned as YMS-294 in 1943.
Geophysical MASINT is a branch of Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) that involves phenomena transmitted through the earth and manmade structures including emitted or reflected sounds, pressure waves, vibrations, and magnetic field or ionosphere disturbances.
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The Missile Impact Location System or Missile Impact Locating System (MILS) is an ocean acoustic system designed to locate the impact position of test missile nose cones at the ocean's surface and then the position of the cone itself for recovery from the ocean bottom. The systems were installed in the missile test ranges managed by the U.S. Air Force.
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