ASA 128th Meeting - Austin, Texas - 1994 Nov 28 .. Dec 02

1pAO12. Acoustical monitoring of sediment transport in the bottom boundary layer at the inner continental shelf LEO-15 site.

Peter Traykovski

James Lynch

James Irish

Arthur Newhall

Woods Hole Oceanogr. Inst., Woods Hole, MA 02543

The bottom boundary layer (BBL) is of great importance in oceanography as it determines the amount of frictional stress a flow encounters from the ocean bottom, and it plays a major role in controlling sediment transport processes. The backscatter of acoustical energy from suspended sediments has proven to be a valuable tool in studying the BBL. Preliminary results from acoustical monitoring of sediment transport at the ``Long-Term Ecosystem Observatory'' (LEO-15) site located in 15 m of water off of the southern New Jersey coast are presented. The acoustical backscatter system that was deployed at this site during the winter and spring of 1994 is capable of profiling the entire water column by using a downward looking 5-, 2.5-, and 1-mHz sonars and a 1-mHz upward looking sonar. The fine resolution images produced from this system resolved several sediment suspension events and bottom feature movement was observed. [Work supported by NOAA.]