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.]