A Preliminary Investigation of the Feasibility of Ice-Mounted Geophone Sonar Arrays

The feasibility of replacing hydrophone arrays in water by geophone arrays in ice for use in passive sonar systems is investigated. Past work in deepwater, Spring conditions in the Arctic indicated that horizontal geophones implanted in pack ice have better signal-to-noise ratios than hydrophones in water below the ice, for requencies below about 30Hz. This study took into consideration the problem of possible multipath propagation in the ice and the propagation velocity across an ice-implanted geophone array. Experiments were performed in the marginal zone of the Chukchi Sea. This area offered an expedient for early testing of geophone arrays by taking advantage of the Marginal Ice Zone - Pacific, 1971 Project. (Author) Report on Arctic Research Project.