Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center: Experimental and Modeling Capabilities for Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Acoustic Sources in the Gulf of Mexico

摘要

The Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center (LADC), as a consortium of three American Universities and the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, offers the experimental and modeling capabilities for the assessment of the environmental impact of tomographic exploration of the Northern Gulf of Mexico. LADC also has acoustic sources that could be utilized for conducting pilot tomographic experiments in the region of the DeSoto Canyon. The results of modeling the acoustic field distribution from an industrial seismic exploration array, measured in 2003 calibration experiment, are presented in the first part of the paper. Different temporal and spectral acoustic characteristics of transient signals are discussed as potential qualitative measures of the environmental impact on endangered marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico. Acoustic propagation studies for the LADC sources, addressing the potential environmental impact of a proposed tomographic slice across the DeSoto Canyon in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico are discussed in the second part of the talk.