ALBERT

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2002

Description: One of the major problems in wireless communications is compensating for the time-varying intersymbol interference (ISI) due to multipath. Underwater acoustic communications is one such type of wireless communications in which the channel is highly dynamic and the amount of ISI due to multipath is relatively large. In the underwater acoustic channel, associated with each of the deterministic propagation paths are macro-multipath fluctuations which depend on large scale environmental features and geometry, and micro-multipath fluctuations which are dependent on small scale environmental inhomogeneities. For arrivals which are unsaturated or partially saturated, the fluctuations in ISI are dominated by the macro-multipath fluctuations resulting in correlated fluctuations between different taps of the sampled channel impulse response. Traditional recursive least squares (RLS) algorithms used for adapting channel equalizers do not exploit this structure. A channel subspace post-filtering algorithm that treats the least squares channel estimate as a noisy time series and exploits the channel correlation structure to reduce the channel estimation error is presented. The improvement in performance of the algorithm with respect to traditional least squares algorithms is predicted theoretically, and demonstrated using both simulation and experimental data. An adaptive equalizer structure that explicitly uses this improved estimate of the channel impulse response is discussed. The improvement in performance of such an equalizer due to the use of the post-filtered estimate is also predicted theoretically, and demonstrated using both simulation and experimental data.

Description: This research was supported by an ONR Graduate Traineeship Award Grant #N00014-00-10049.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Description: A confluence of several coastal oceanographic features creates an acoustically interesting region with high variability along the New England Shelfbreak. Determining the effect of the variability on acoustic propagation is critical for sonar systems. In the Nantucket Shoals area of the Middle Atlantic Bight, two experiments, the New England Shelfbreak Tests (NEST), were conducted in May and June, 2007 and 2008, to study this variability. A comprehensive climatology of the region along with the experimental data provided detailed information about the variability of the water column, particularly the temperature and sound speed fields. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of the ocean sound speed field defined a set of perturbations to the background sound speed field for each of the NEST Scanfish surveys. Attenuation due to bottom sediments is the major contributor of transmission loss in the ocean. In shallow water, available propagation paths most often include bottom interaction. Perturbations in the ocean sound speed field can cause changes in the angle of incidence of sound rays with the bottom, which can result in changes to the amount of sound energy lost to the bottom. In lieu of complex transmission loss models, the loss/bounce model provides a simpler way to predict transmission loss changes due to perturbations in the background sound speed field in the ocean. Using an acoustic wavenumber perturbation method, sound speed perturbations, defined by the ocean EOF modes, are translated into a change in the horizontal wavenumber, which in turn changes the modal angle of incidence. The loss/bounce model calculates the loss of sound energy (dB) per bottom bounce over a given distance based on the change in angle of incidence. Evaluated using experimental data from NEST, the loss/bounce model provided accurate predictions of changes to transmission loss due to perturbations of the background sound speed field.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2009

Description: The application of elemental and isotopic metal palaeoredox tracers to the geologic past rests on an understanding of modern metal cycles. This study reevaluates the surface-cycling of Mo and Re in near-surface reservoirs. Revised river averages of Mo and Re are 1.8- and 7.9-fold larger than previous estimates. The river concentrations of 8.0 nmol Mo kg−1 and 11.2 pmol Re kg−1 (pre-anthropogenic), result in shorter seawater response times of 4.4×105 yr (τMo) and 1.3×105 yr (τRe pre-anthropogenic). These metals, especially Re, are more sensitive to changing source and sink fluxes than previously thought. Evaluation of Mo and Re concentrations in high temperature fluids from the Manus Basin indicate that Re is essentially absent from the hydrothermal end member and Mo is present at concentrations considerably lower than ambient seawater. The sink fluxes represented by hydrothermal circulation are negligible in comparison to the revised river source fluxes. Anthropogenic contributions to the Re flux to seawater are seen in the high concentrations of certain impacted water samples such as those associated with mining sites. It may also be seen in a significant, variable, Re enrichment feature in the Hudson River estuary. This Re enrichment feature is not the result of estuarine mixing or the remobilization of sediment-hosted Re. On the basis of a Re - SO2− 4 correlation we are able to quantify and correct for the anthropogenic Re, which corresponds to ~33% of the modern river average. This study documents the development of an analytical method for stable Re isotopes. Though complicated by analyte requirements and 187Re – 187Os decay, Re isotope measurements have a reproducibility of ±0.05h for analyte concentrations of 20 ng Re mL−1. Total Re isotopic variability to date is 0.9h. This includes 0.3h across five commercially available Re products, and 0.5h across a black shale weathering profile. δ187Re variability across the weathering profile was systematic with the most weathered samples showing the most significant 187Re depletions. The Re isotopic weathering profile is well described by both two-component mixing and Rayleigh fractionation. There are currently insufficient data to discriminate between the two models.

Description: We would like to acknowledge financial support from NSF-EAR grant 0519387 and from the WHOI Academic Programs Office as well as support for the WHOI Plasma Mass Spectrometry Facility from NSF-EAR/IF grants 0318137 and 0651366.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Description: Mode filtering is most commonly implemented using the sampled mode shape or pseudoinverse algorithms. Buck et al placed these techniques in the context of a broader maximum a posteriori (MAP) framework. However, the MAP algorithm requires that the signal and noise statistics be known a priori. Adaptive array processing algorithms are candidates for improving performance without the need for a priori signal and noise statistics. A variant of the physically constrained, maximum likelihood (PCML) algorithm is developed for mode filtering that achieves the same performance as the MAP mode filter yet does not need a priori knowledge of the signal and noise statistics. The central innovation of this adaptive mode filter is that the received signal's sample covariance matrix, as estimated by the algorithm, is constrained to be that which can be physically realized given a modal propagation model and an appropriate noise model. The first simulation presented in this thesis models the acoustic pressure field as a complex Gaussian random vector and compares the performance of the pseudoinverse, reduced rank pseudoinverse, sampled mode shape, PCML minimum power distortionless response (MPDR), PCML-MAP, and MAP mode filters. The PCML-MAP filter performs as well as the MAP filter without the need for a priori data statistics. The PCML-MPDR filter performs nearly as well as the MAP filter as well, and avoids a sawtooth pattern that occurs with the reduced rank pseudoinverse filter. The second simulation presented models the underwater environment and broadband communication setup of the Shallow Water 2006 (SW06) experiment. Data processing results are presented from the Shallow Water 2006 experiment, showing the reduced sensitivity of the PCML-MPDR filter to white noise compared with the reduced rank pseudoinverse filter. Lastly, a linear, decision-directed, RLS equalizer is used to combine the response of several modes and its performance is compared with an equalizer applied directly to the data received on each hydrophone.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2009

Description: Marine mammal whistle calls present an attractive medium for covert underwater communications. High quality models of the whistle calls are needed in order to synthesize natural-sounding whistles with embedded information. Since the whistle calls are composed of frequency modulated harmonic tones, they are best modeled as a weighted superposition of harmonically related sinusoids. Previous research with bottlenose dolphin whistle calls has produced synthetic whistles that sound too “clean” for use in a covert communications system. Due to the sensitivity of the human auditory system, watermarking schemes that slightly modify the fundamental frequency contour have good potential for producing natural-sounding whistles embedded with retrievable watermarks. Structured total least squares is used with linear prediction analysis to track the time-varying fundamental frequency and harmonic amplitude contours throughout a whistle call. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the capability to accurately model bottlenose dolphin whistle calls and retrieve embedded information from watermarked synthetic whistle calls. Different fundamental frequency watermarking schemes are proposed based on their ability to produce natural sounding synthetic whistles and yield suitable watermark detection and retrieval.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2002

Description: Sound propagation in shallow water is highly dependent on the interaction of the sound field with the bottom. In order to fully understand this problem, it is necessary to obtain reliable estimates of bottom geoacoustic properties that can be used in acoustic propagation codes. In this thesis, perturbative inversion methods and exact inverse methods are discussed as a means for inferring geoacoustic properties of the bottom. For each of these methods, the input data to the inversion is the horizontal wavenumber spectrum of a point-source acoustic field. The main thrust of the thesis work concerns extracting horizontal wavenumber content for fully three-dimensionally varying waveguide environments. In this context, a high-resolution autoregressive (AR) spectral estimator was applied to determine wavenumber content for short aperture data. As part of this work, the AR estimator was examined for its ability to detect discrete wavenumbers in the presence of noise and also to resolve closely spaced wavenumbers for short aperture data. As part of a geoacoustic inversion workshop, the estimator was applied to extract horizontal wavenumber content for synthetic pressure field data with range-varying geoacoustic properties in the sediment. The resulting wavenumber content was used as input data to a perturbative inverse algorithm to determine the sound speed profile in the sediment. It was shown using the high-resolution wavenumber estimator that both the shape and location of the range-variability in the sediment could be determined. The estimator was also applied to determine wavenumbers for synthetic data where the water column sound speed contained temporal variations due to the presence of internal waves. It was shown that reliable estimates of horizontal wavenumbers could be obtained that are consistent with the boundary conditions of the waveguide. The Modal Mapping Experiment (MOMAX), an experimental method for measuring the full spatial variability of a propagating sound field and its corresponding modal content in two-dimensions, is also discussed. The AR estimator is applied to extract modal content from the real data and interpreted with respect to source/receiver motion and geometry. For a moving source, it is shown that the wavenumber content is Doppler shifted. A method is then described that allows the direct measure of modal group velocities from Doppler shifted wavenumber spectra. Finally, numerical studies are presented addressing the practical issues associated with using MOMAX type data in the exact inversion method of Gelfand-Levitan.

Description: I am especially grateful to ONR for providing the funding for me to do this work.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2007

Description: This thesis covers a comprehensive analysis of long-range, deep-ocean, low-frequency, sound propagation experimental results obtained from the North Pacific Ocean. The statistics of acoustic fields after propagation through internal-wave-induced sound-speed fluctuations are explored experimentally and theoretically. The thesis starts with the investigation of the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory 98-99 data by exploring the space-time scales of ocean sound speed variability and the contributions from different frequency bands. The validity of the Garret & Munk internal-wave model is checked in the upper ocean of the eastern North Pacific. All these results impose hard bounds on the strength and characteristic scales of sound speed fluctuations one might expect in this region of the North Pacific for both internal-wave band fluctuations and mesoscale band fluctuations. The thesis then presents a detailed analysis of the low frequency, broadband sound arrivals obtained in the North Pacific Ocean. The observed acoustic variability is compared with acoustic predictions based on the weak fluctuation theory of Rytov, and direct parabolic equation Monte Carlo simulations. The comparisons show that a resonance condition exists between the local acoustic ray and the internal wave field such that only the internal-waves whose crests are parallel to the local ray path will contribute to acoustic scattering: This effect leads to an important filtering of the acoustic spectra relative to the internal-wave spectra. We believe that this is the first observational evidence for the acoustic ray and internal wave resonance. Finally, the thesis examined the evolution with distance, of the acoustic arrival pattern of the off-axis sound source transmissions in the Long-range Ocean Acoustic Propagation EXperiment. The observations of mean intensity time-fronts are compared to the deterministic ray, parabolic equation (with/without internal waves) and (one-way coupled) normal mode calculations. It is found the diffraction effect is dominant in the shorter-range transmission. In the longer range, the (internal wave) scattering effect smears the energy in both the spatial and temporal scales and thus has a dominant role in the finale region.

Description: The funding that made this research possible came from the Office of Naval Research, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Description: The cosmogenic radionuclide 10Be is a unique tracer of shallow sediment subduction in volcanic arcs. The range in 10Be enrichment in the Central American Volcanic Arc between Guatemala and Costa Rica is not controlled by variations in 10Be concentrations in subducting sediment seaward of the Middle America Trench. Sedimentary 10Be is correlated negatively with 143Nd/144Nd, illustrating that 10Be concentrations varied both between and within cores due to mixing between terrigenous clay and volcanic ash endmember components. This mixing behavior was determined to be a function of grain size controls on 10Be concentrations. A negative correlation of bulk sedimentary 10Be concentrations with median grain size and a positive correlation with the proportion of the sediment grains that were 〈32 μm in diameter demonstrated that high concentrations of 10Be in fine-grained, terrigenous sediments were diluted by larger grained volcanogenic material. The sharp decrease in 10Be enrichment in the Central American Volcanic Arc between southeastern Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica correlates with changes in fault structure in the subducting Cocos plate. Offshore of Nicaragua, extensional faults associated with plate bending have throw equal to or greater than the overlying subducting sediment thickness. These faults enable efficient subduction of the entire sediment package by preventing relocation of the décollement within the downgoing sediments. Offshore of Costa Rica, the reduction of fault relief results in basement faults that do not penetrate the overlying sediment. A conceptual model is proposed in which the absence of significant basement roughness allows the décollement to descend into the subducting sediment column, leading to subsequent underplating and therefore removal of the bulk of the sediment layer that contains 10Be. Basement fault relief was linearly related to plate curvature and trench depth. The systematic shoaling of the plate from southeastern Nicaragua to northwestern Costa Rica is not explained by changes in plate age for this region. Instead, it is hypothesized that the flexural shape of the plate offshore of southeastern Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica represents a lateral response to a buoyant load caused by the thick crust and elevated thermal regime in the Cocos plate offshore of southeastern Costa Rica.

Description: Funding for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund, the WHOI Deep Ocean Institute Graduate Fellowship, and Geological Society of America Graduate Research Grant #7179-02.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Description: A novel distributed underwater acoustic networking (UAN) protocol suitable for ad-hoc deployments of both stationary and mobile nodes dispersed across a relatively wide coverage area is presented. Nodes are dynamically clustered in a distributed manner based on the estimated position of one-hop neighbor nodes within a shallow water environment. The spatial dynamic cellular clustering scheme allows scalable communication resource allocation and channel reuse similar in design to land-based cellular architectures, except devoid of the need for a centralized controlling infrastructure. Simulation results demonstrate that relatively high degrees of interference immunity, network connectivity, and network stability can be achieved despite the severe limitations of the underwater acoustic channel.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2002

Description: This thesis investigates the complexities of acoustic scattering by finite bodies in general and by fish in particular through the development of an advanced acoustic scattering model and detailed laboratory acoustic measurements. A general acoustic scattering model is developed that is accurate and numerically effcient for a wide range of frequencies, angles of orientation, irregular axisymmetric shapes and boundary conditions. The model presented is an extension of a two-dimensional conformal mapping approach to scattering by irregular, finite-length bodies of revolution. An extensive series of broadband acoustic backscattering measurements has been conducted involving alewife fish (Alosa pseudoharengus), which are morphologically similar to the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus). A greater-than-octave bandwidth (40-95 kHz), shaped, linearly swept, frequency modulated signal was used to insonify live, adult alewife that were tethered while being rotated in 1-degree increments over all angles of orientation in two planes of rotation (lateral and dorsal/ventral). Spectral analysis correlates frequency dependencies to morphology and orientation. Pulse compression processing temporally resolves multiple returns from each individual which show good correlation with size and orientation, and demonstrate that there exists more than one significant scattering feature in the animaL. Imaging technologies used to exactly measure the morphology of the scattering features of fish include very highresolution Phase Contrast X-rays (PCX) and Computerized Tomography (CT) scans, which are used for morphological evaluation and incorporation into the scattering modeL. Studies such as this one, which combine scattering models with high-resolution morphological information and high-quality laboratory data, are crucial to the quantitative use of acoustics in the ocean.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1983

Description: Ocean acoustic tomography was proposed in 1978 by Munk and Wunsch as a possible technique for monitoring the evolution of temperature, density, and current fields over large regions. In 1981, the Ocean Tomography Group deployed four 224 Hz acoustic sources and five receivers in an array which fit within a box 300 km. on a side centered on 26°N, 70°W (southwest of Bermuda). The experiment was intended both to demonstrate the practicality of tomography as an observation tool and to extend the understanding of mesoscale evolution in the low-energy region far from the strong Gulf Stream recirculation. The propagation of 224 Hz sound energy in the ocean can be described as a set of rays traveling from source to receiver, with each ray taking a different path through the ocean in a vertical plane connecting the source and receiver. The sources transmitted a phase-coded signal which was processed at the receiver to produce a pulse at the time of arrival of the signal. Rays can be distinguished by their different pulse travel times, and these travel times change in response to variations in sound speed and current in the ocean through which the rays passed. In order to reconstruct the ocean variations from the observed travel time changes, it is necessary to specify models for both the variations and their effect on the travel times. The dependence of travel time on the oceanic sound speed and current fields can be calculated using ray paths traced by computer. The vertical structure of the sound speed and current fields in the ocean were modelled as a combination of Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) from MODE. The horizontal structure was continuous, but was constrained to have a gaussian covariance with a 100 km. e- folding scale. The resulting estimator closely resembles objective mapping as used in meteorology and physical oceanography. The tomographic system has at present only been used to estimate sound speed structure for comparison with the traditional measurements, especially the first two NOAA CTD surveys, but the method provides means for estimating density, temperature or velocity fields, and these will be produced in the future. The sound speed estimates made using the tomographic system match the traditional measurements to within the associated error bars, and there are several possibilities for improving the signal to noise ratio of the data. Given high-precision data, tomographic systems can resolve ocean structures at small scales, such as in the Gulf Stream, or at large scales, over entire ocean basins. Work is in progress to evaluate the usefulness of tomography as an observation tool in these applications.

Description: My support for the first 3 years came from an NSF graduate fellowship, and I was then supported as a research assistant by NSF Grant OCE-8017791.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2003

Description: Pathways of exchange between the shelf and slope in the Mid-Atlantic Bight were investigated using a combination of radiochemical tracer and hydrographic measurements. The motivation was to provide evidence of transport routes for shelfwater that could be important to the balance of shelf-slope exchange, as well as to the biogeochemical fluxes across this crucial ocean boundary. The four radium isotopes, with half-lives of 4 days to 1600 years, a coastal source, and conservative properties in seawater, were used as coastal water mass tracers. The final study was comprised of data from 5 cruises, with a total of 8 cross-shelfbreak transects. Two areas were studied, a northern Mid-Atlantic Bight transect south of Nantucket Shoals, and a southern Mid-Atlantic Bight series of transects off the coast of Delaware. In addition, data were collected from the shelfbreak at Cape Hatteras crossing the western wall of the Gulf Stream to help determine sources of anomalous 224Ra enrichment which was observed on several of the shelfbreak transects. Combined with the hydrographic data, radium measurements suggested a pathway for exchange in the Mid- Atlantic Bight that was not a direct advection of shelf water toward the slope. Rather, the evidence suggested limited direct exchange of surface shelf water across the shelfbreak front. This provides observational evidence that is consistent with models (e.g., Gawarkiewicz and Chapman, 1991) which predict the shelfbreak front will impede exchange. Furthermore, 224Ra activity on the upper slope points to a rapid transport pathway for bottom water from the Cape Hatteras shelf via the Gulf Stream onto the Mid-Atlantic Bight slope. The radiochemical and hydrographic evidence suggests that recirculation around the slope sea gyre may be a more important pathway than direct cross-shelf transport.

Description: This work was supported by funding from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Programs office, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Ventues Fund, National Science Foundation grant OCE-0097232, and Civilian Research and Development Foundation grant UGI-2432-SE-02.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Electrical Engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 1979

Description: For a spherical acoustic wave incident on a horizontally stratified ocean bottom, the reflected pressure field and the plane-wave reflection coefficient are related through a two-dimensional spatial-wavenumber Fourier transform. An algorithm is proposed to evaluate the plane-wave reflection coefficient from the bottom reflected field as a function of angle of incidencè. The algorithm is based on the "Projection-Slice" theorem associated with the two-dimensional Fourier transform. This technique is implemented to evaluate the plane-wave reflection coefficient for a perfectly reflecting ocean bottom and for an isovelocity-low speed ocean bottom model.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008.

Description: In this thesis, I provide quantitative descriptions of toothed whale echolocation and foraging behavior, including assessment of the effects of noise on foraging behavior and the potential influence of ocean acoustic propagation conditions on biosonar detection ranges and whale noise exposure. In addition to presenting some novel basic science findings, the case studies presented in this thesis have implications for future work and for management. In Chapter 2, I describe the application of a modified version of the Dtag to studies of harbor porpoise echolocation behavior. The study results indicate how porpoises vary the rate and level of their echolocation clicks during prey capture events; detail the differences in echolocation behavior between different animals and in response to differences in prey fish; and show that, unlike bats, porpoises continue their echolocation buzz after the moment of prey capture. Chapters 3-4 provide case studies that emphasize the importance of applying realistic models of ocean acoustic propagation in marine mammal studies. These chapters illustrate that, although using geometric spreading approximations to predict communication/target detection ranges or noise exposure levels is appropriate in some cases, it can result in large errors in other cases, particularly in situations where refraction in the water column or multi-path acoustic propagation are significant. Finally, in Chapter 5, I describe two methods for statistical analysis of whale behavior data, the rotation test and a semi-Markov chain model. I apply those methods to test for changes in sperm whale foraging behavior in response to airgun noise exposure. Test results indicate that, despite the low-level exposures experienced by the whales in the study, some (but not all) of them reduced their buzz production rates and altered other foraging behavior parameters in response to the airgun exposure.

Description: Work presented in this thesis was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the WHOI Ocean Life Institute (Grant Numbers 32031300 and 25051351), the Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service (Cooperative Agreement Numbers 1435-01-02-CA-85186 and NA87RJ0445; WHOI Grant Number 15205601), the Industry Research Funding Coalition, and the WHOI/MIT Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science & Engineering (including a Fye Teaching Fellowship).

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January 1983

Description: Isotope studies of nitrogen and carbon were undertaken to investigate the fate of particulate organic matter (POM) during its residence in the water column and after deposition on the seafloor. The processes focused on were water-column transformations and sedimentary diagenesis. Sampling sites were chosen to provide POM subject to different specific mineralization processes (nitrification, denitrification, and sulfate reduction), different lengths of water column (duration of the mineralization process), and differences in the size of the organic-matter flux. The δl5N and δ13C of plankton, POM, and sediments from several oceanic sites were related to biological and hydrographic processes identified from nutrient, temperature, and salinity profiles. This was done to determine what effect these processes have on the δ15N of POM. Four stations were studied in the upwelling area off the coast of Peru and one station was studied in the Gulf of Maine. Important factors controlling the δ15N of plankton appear to be the concentration and δl5N of nitrate in the surface waters, and the relative zooplankton and phytoplankton abundances. Plankton from the Peru Upwelling Area are enriched in 15N as compared to plankton from other parts of the world's oceans where denitrification is absent. This enrichment may be due to the assimilation of 15N-enriched nitrate, produced by the selective reduction of 14N during denitrification. Zooplankton are 3 to 4% enriched in 15N as compared with phytoplankton. Production of 14N -enriched fecal pellets is suggested as a mechanism for this trophic enrichment. In the surface waters, the δl5N of POM is similar to that of plankton. In the Peru Upwelling Area, the δ15N of POM from the oxygen-deficient waters decreases with increasing depth. In the Gulf of Maine, below the euphotic zone in the oxic deep waters, the δ15N of POM increases with increasing depth. The difference in isotopic alteration may be due to the effect of different redox conditions on the mechanism and sequence by which specific organic nitrogen compounds, variably enriched in 15M, undergo degradation. Furthermore, bacterial growth on nitrogen-poor particles in the deep waters of the Peru Upwelling Area may contribute to the low δ15N of POM. In contrast to the large range in δ15N (-2 to +17%) of the POM, the range of δ15N in the sediments is small (+5 to +9%). Within a core, the average variation in δ15N was only 1.8%. Temporal variability in the δ15N of sedimenting POM and benthic activity appear to be important in determining the δ15N of the sediments. The large changes in POM concentration and isotope content at the sediment/water interface as compared with the more constant values found down-core, suggest that processes occuring at the sediment/water interface are critical, although bioturbation may also be important in determining the δ15N of oxic sediments. If diagenesis causes a significant loss of organic matter, profiles of organic carbon and nitrogen contents should show decreases with increasing depth and C/N ratios should increase with increasing depth (Reimers, 1981). Since none of the sedimentary profiles exhibited such trends, it is concluded that diagenesis was insufficient to erase the percent carbon, nitrogen and C/N ratio signatures generated by the POM flux and alterations at the sediment/water interface. Temporal variability in the δ15N of bottom-water POM may be caused by changes in deep-water currents which transport POM horizontally and to changes in bacterial and possibly other biological activity in the water column. This thesis work suggests that δ15N may be a useful tool in studying the geochemistry of POM in the marine environment. In addition, this research has shown that interpretation of the sedimentary 15N record must include consideration of isotopic alteration associated with bacterial remineralization of POM and benthic activity.

Description: Funds for this research were provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography, the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OCE-8024442, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Center for Coastal Research of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2004

Description: Relatively little is known about the role of eddies in controlling subduction in the eastern half of the subtropical gyre. Here, a new tool to study the eastern North Atlantic Ocean is created by combining a regional, eddy-resolving numerical model with observations to produce a state estimate of the ocean circulation. The estimate is a synthesis of a variety of in-situ observations from the Subduction Experiment, TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry, and the MIT General Circulation Model. A novel aspect of this work is the search for an initial eddy field and eddy-scale open boundary conditions by the use of an adjoint model. The adjoint model for this region of the ocean is stable and yields useful information despite concerns about the chaotic nature of eddy-resolving models. The method is successful because the dynamics are only weakly nonlinear in the eastern region of the subtropical gyre. Therefore, no fundamental obstacle exists to constraining the model to both the large scale circulation and the eddy scale in this region of the ocean. Individual eddy trajectories can also be determined. The state estimate is consistent with observations, self-consistent with the equations of motion, and it explicitly resolves eddy-scale motions with a 1/6º grid. Therefore, subduction rates, volume budgets, and buoyancy budgets are readily diagnosed in a physically interpretable context. Estimates of eddy subduction for the eastern subtropical gyre of the North Atlantic are larger than previously calculated from parameterizations in coarse-resolution models. Eddies contribute up to 40 m/yr of subduction locally. Furthermore, eddy subduction rates have typical magnitudes of 15% of the total subduction rate. To evaluate the net effect of eddies on an individual density class, volume budgets are diagnosed. Eddies contribute as much as 1 Sv to diapycnal flux, and hence subduction, in the density range 25.5 〈 σ 〈 26.5. Eddies have a integrated impact which is sizable relative to the 2.5 Sv of diapycnal flux by the mean circulation. A combination of Eulerian and isopycnal maps suggest that the North Equatorial Current and the Azores Current are the geographical centers of eddy subduction. The findings of this thesis imply that the inability to resolve or accurately parameterize eddy subduction in climate models would lead to an accumulation of error in the structure of the main thermocline, even in the eastern subtropical gyre, which is a region of comparatively weak eddy motions.

Description: This thesis has received support through grants, fellowships, and computer allocations. A NASA Earth System Science Fellowship has been my primary source of funding. In addition, computer time at the University of Texas has been provided by a NPACI PRAC grant, "State Estimates of the Time-Evolving Three-dimensional Ocean Circulation with Eddy Resolution." Grant #6857100 through CalTech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as Grant #6892952 through NASA-Goddard Flight Center for the synthesis of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008

Description: Oceanographic applications of robotics are as varied as the undersea environment itself. As underwater robotics moves toward the study of dynamic processes with multiple vehicles, there is an increasing need to distill large volumes of data from underwater vehicles and deliver it quickly to human operators. While tethered robots are able to communicate data to surface observers instantly, communicating discoveries is more difficult for untethered vehicles. The ocean imposes severe limitations on wireless communications; light is quickly absorbed by seawater, and tradeoffs between frequency, bitrate and environmental effects result in data rates for acoustic modems that are routinely as low as tens of bits per second. These data rates usually limit telemetry to state and health information, to the exclusion of mission-specific science data. In this thesis, I present a system designed for communicating and presenting science telemetry from untethered underwater vehicles to surface observers. The system's goals are threefold: to aid human operators in understanding oceanographic processes, to enable human operators to play a role in adaptively responding to mission-specific data, and to accelerate mission planning from one vehicle dive to the next. The system uses standard lossy compression techniques to lower required data rates to those supported by commercially available acoustic modems (O(10)-O(100) bits per second). As part of the system, a method for compressing time-series science data based upon the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is explained, a number of low-bitrate image compression techniques are compared, and a novel user interface for reviewing transmitted telemetry is presented. Each component is motivated by science data from a variety of actual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) missions performed in the last year.

Description: National Science Foundation Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging (CenSSIS ERC)

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2006

Description: This thesis develops methods for estimating wideband shallow-water acoustic communication channels. The very shallow water wideband channel has three distinct features: large dimension caused by extensive delay spread; limited number of degrees of freedom (DOF) due to resolvable paths and inter-path correlations; and rapid fluctuations induced by scattering from the moving sea surface. Traditional LS estimation techniques often fail to reconcile the rapid fluctuations with the large dimensionality. Subspace based approaches with DOF reduction are confronted with unstable subspace structure subject to significant changes over a short period of time. Based on state-space channel modeling, the first part of this thesis develops algorithms that jointly estimate the channel as well as its dynamics. Algorithms based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and the Expectation Maximization (EM) approach respectively are developed. Analysis shows conceptual parallels, including an identical second-order innovation form shared by the EKF modification and the suboptimal EM, and the shared issue of parameter identifiability due to channel structure, reflected as parameter unobservability in EKF and insufficient excitation in EM. Modifications of both algorithms, including a two-model based EKF and a subspace EM algorithm which selectively track dominant taps and reduce prediction error, are proposed to overcome the identifiability issue. The second part of the thesis develops algorithms that explicitly find the sparse estimate of the delay-Doppler spread function. The study contributes to a better understanding of the channel physical constraints on algorithm design and potential performance improvement. It may also be generalized to other applications where dimensionality and variability collide.

Description: Financial support for this thesis research was provided by the Office of Naval Research and the WHOI Academic Program Office.

Description: Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Ocean Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Description: This thesis introduces an algorithm for inverting for the geoacoustic properties of the seafloor in shallow water. The input data required by the algorithm are estimates of the amplitudes of the normal modes excited by a low-frequency pure-tone sound source, and estimates of the water column sound speed profiles at the source and receiver positions. The algorithm makes use of perturbation results, and computes the small correction to an estimated background profile that is necessary to reproduce the measured mode amplitudes. Range-dependent waveguide properties can be inverted for so long as they vary slowly enough in range that the adiabatic approximation is valid. The thesis also presents an estimator which can be used to obtain the input data for the inversion algorithm from pressure measurements made on a vertical line array (VLA). The estimator is an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), which treats the mode amplitudes and eigenvalues as state variables. Numerous synthetic and real-data examples of both the inversion algorithm and the EKF estimator are provided. The inversion algorithm is similar to eigenvalue perturbation methods, and the thesis also presents a combination mode amplitude/eigenvalue inversion algorithm, which combines the advantages of the two techniques.

Description: The funding that made this research possible came from the Office of Naval Research, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2005

Description: This thesis develops and utilizes a method for analyzing data from the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory's (NPAL) Basin Acoustic Seamount Scattering Experiment (BASSEX). BASSEX was designed to provide data to support the development of analytical techniques and methods which improve the understanding of sound propagation around underwater seamounts. The depth-dependent sound velocity profile of typical ocean waveguides force sound to travel in convergence zones about a minimum sound speed depth. This ducted nature of the ocean makes modeling the acoustic field around seamounts particularly challenging, compared to an isovelocity medium. The conical shape of seamounts also adds to the complexity of the scatter field. It is important to the U.S. Navy to understand how sound is diffracted around this type of topographic feature. Underwater seamounts can be used to conceal submarines by absorbing and scattering the sound they emit. BASSEX measurements have characterized the size and shape of the forward scatter field around the Kermit-Roosevelt Seamount in the Pacific Ocean. Kermit- Roosevelt is a large, conical seamount which shoals close to the minimum sound speed depth, making it ideal for study. Acoustic sources, including M-sequence and linear frequency-modulated sources, were stationed around the seamount at megameter ranges. A hydrophone array was towed around the seamount to locations which allowed measurement of the perturbation zone. Results from the method developed in this thesis show that the size and shape of the perturbation zone measured coincides with theoretical and experimental results derived in previous work.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2007

Description: Zinc (Zn) stable isotopes can record information about important oceanographic processes. This thesis presents data on Zn isotopes in anthropogenic materials, hydrothermal fluids and minerals, cultured marine phytoplankton, natural plankton, and seawater. By measuring Zn isotopes in a diverse array of marine samples, we hope to understand how Zn isotopes are fractionated in the oceans and how Zn isotopes may be used as tracers of marine biogeochemical processes. Common forms of anthropogenic Zn had δ66Zn from +0.08‰ to +0.32‰, a range similar to Zn ores and terrigenous materials. Larger variations were discovered in hydrothermal fluids and minerals, with hydrothermal fluids ranging in δ66Zn from 0.02‰ to +0.93‰, and chimney minerals ranging from -0.09‰ to +1.17‰. Lower-temperature vent systems had higher δ66Zn values, suggesting that precipitation of isotopically light Zn sulfides drives much of the Zn isotope fractionation in hydrothermal systems. In cultured diatoms, a relationship was discovered between Zn transport by either high-affinity or low-affinity uptake pathways, and the magnitude of Zn isotope fractionation. We established isotope effects of δ66Zn = -0.2‰ for high-affinity uptake and δ66Zn = -0.8‰ for low-affinity uptake. This work is the first to describe the molecular basis for biological fractionation of transition metals. Biological fractionation of Zn isotopes under natural conditions was investigated by measuring Zn isotopes in plankton collected in the Peru Upwelling Region and around the world. Seawater dissolved Zn isotopes also reflect the chemical and biological cycling of Zn. The δ66Zn of deep seawater in the North Pacific and North Atlantic is about 0.5‰, and the dissolved δ66Zn gets lighter in the upper water column. This is unexpected based our observations of a biological preference for uptake of light Zn isotopes, and suggests that Zn transport to deep waters may occur by Zn adsorption to sinking particles rather than as primary biological Zn. The thesis, by presenting data on several important aspects of Zn isotope cycling in the oceans, lays the groundwork for further use of Zn isotopes as a marine biogeochemical tracer.

Description: This research was funded by NSF Research Grants OCE-0002273 and OCE-0326689, the Martin Family Society Fellowship for Sustainability, the Woods Hole Ocean Ventures Fund, and Arunas and Pam Chesonis through an MIT Earth Systems Initiative Ignition Grant.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Description: Oceanic spreading centers are sites of magmatic, tectonic, and hydrothermal processes. In this thesis I present experimental and seismological constraints on the evolution of these complex regions of focused crustal accretion and extension. Experimental results from drained, triaxial deformation experiments on partially molten olivine reveal that melt extraction rates are linearly dependent on effective mean stress when the effective mean stress is low and non-linearly dependent on effective mean stress when it is high. Microearthquakes recorded above an inferred magma reservoir along the TAG segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge delineate for the first time the arcuate, subsurface structure of a long-lived, active detachment fault. This fault penetrates the entire oceanic crust and forms the high-permeability pathway necessary to sustain long-lived, high-temperature hydrothermal venting in this region. Long-lived detachment faulting exhumes lower crustal and mantle rocks. Residual stresses generated by thermal expansion anisotropy and mismatch in the uplifting, cooling rock trigger grain boundary microfractures if stress intensities at the tips of naturally occurring flaws exceed a critical stress intensity factor. Experimental results coupled with geomechanical models indicate that pervasive grain boundary cracking occurs in mantle peridotite when it is uplifted to within 4 km of the seafloor. Whereas faults provide the high-permeability pathways necessary to sustain high-temperature fluid circulation, grain boundary cracks form the interconnected network required for pervasive alteration of the oceanic lithosphere. This thesis provides fundamental constraints on the rheology, evolution, and alteration of the lithosphere at oceanic spreading centers.

Description: Research was funded by a MIT Presidential Fellowship and NSF grants OCE-0095936, OCE-9907224, OCE-0137329, OCE-6892222, and OCE-6897400.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution December 1997

Description: A new tomographic technique is employed to investigate the structure and dynamics of the Pacific upper mantle. We invert band-center travel times of ScS reverberations and frequency-dependent travel times of direct S phases, upper-mantle guided waves such as SS and SSS, and the R1 and G1 surface waves for the 2D composite structure in the plane of two Pacific corridors. The frequency-dependent travel times of the turning and surface waves are measured from all three components of ground motion as phase delays relative to a radially-anisotropic, spherically-symmetric oceanic mantle model, and their 2D Fréchet kernels are constructed by a coupled-mode algorithm. The travel times of the primary ScSn and sScSn phases and their first-order reverberations from the 410 and 660 discontinuities are measured as individual phases and the 2D Fréchet kernels for these band-limited signals are calculated using the paraxial ray approximation. The model parameters include shear-speed variations throughout the mantle, perturbations to radial shear-wave anisotropy in the uppermost mantle, and the topography of the 410 and 660 discontinuities. We construct vertical tomograms through two mantle corridors: one between the Tonga subduction zone and Oahu, Hawaii, which traverses the central Pacific Ocean; and the other between the Ryukyu subduction zone and Oahu, which samples the northern Philippine Sea, the western Pacific, and the entire Hawaiian swell. Tests demonstrate that the data sets for the two corridors resolve the lateral structure in the upper mantle with a scale length of a few hundreds kilometers and greater but that the resolving power decreases rapidly in the lower mantle. The model for the Tonga-Hawaii corridor reveals several interesting features, the most significant being a regular pattern of high and low shear velocities in the upper mantle between Tonga and Hawaii. These variations, which are well resolved by the data set, have a horizontal wavelength of 1500 km, a vertical dimension of 700 km, and an amplitude of about 3%, and they show a strong positive correlation with seafloor topography and geoid-height variations along this corridor. The geoid highs correspond to a series of northwest-trending swells associated with the major hotspots of the Society, Marquesas, and Hawaiian Islands. Where these swells cross the corridor, they are underlain by high shear velocities throughout the uppermost mantle, so it is unlikely that their topography is supported by thermal buoyancy. This result is substantiated by the model from the Ryukyu-Hawaii corridor, which exhibits a prominent, fast region that extends beneath the entire Hawaiian swell. This anomaly, which resides in the uppermost 200-300 km of the mantle, is also positively correlated with the undulations of the Hawaiian-swell height. The other dominant features in the Ryukyu-Hawaii model include the high-velocity subducting slabs beneath the Ryukyu and Izu-Bonin seismic zones, which extend throughout the entire upper mantle; a very low-velocity in the uppermost 160 km of the mantle beneath the northern Philippine Sea, which is ascribed to the presence of extra water in this region; and a pronounced minimum in the amount of radial anisotropy near Hawaii, which is also seen along the Tonga-Hawaii corridor. A joint inversion of the data from the two corridors reveals the same anomaly pattern and clearly demonstrates that the swells in the Central Pacific are underlain by fast velocities. It is therefore implied that the topography of the swells in the central Pacific is supported by a chemical buoyancy mechanism which is generated by basaltic volcanism and the formation of its low-density peridotitic residuum. While the basaltic depletion mechanism can produce high shear velocities in the uppermost 200 km, it cannot explain the depth extent of the fast anomalies beneath the swells which, along Tonga-Hawaii corridor, extend well into the transition zone. It is therefore hypothesized that the central Pacific is underlain by a system of convective rolls that are confined above the 660-km discontinuity. It is likely that these rolls are predominantly oriented in the direction of plate motion (like "Richter rolls ") but the limited depth of the fast anomaly beneath the Hawaiian swell (200-300 km) suggests that their pattern is probably more complicated. Nevertheless, this convection pattern appears to be strongly correlated with the locations of the Tahitian, Marquesan, and Hawaiian hotspots, which raises interesting questions for Morgan's hypothesis that these hotspots are the surface manifestations of deep-mantle plumes.

Description: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant EAR- 9628351 and by the Defense Special Weapons Agency under grant DSW A-F49620-95-1- 0051.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2004

Description: Laterally extensive, well-developed clinoforms have been mapped in Early Cretaceous deposits located in the northeastern 27,000 km2 of the Colvile Basin, North Slope of Alaska. Using public domain 2-D seismic data, well logs, core photographs, and grain size data, depositional geometries within the Nanushuk and Torok formations were interpreted in order to constrain the transport conditions associated with progradation of the shoreline and construction of the continental margin out of detritus shed from the ancestral Brooks Range. Using STRATA, a synthetic stratigraphic modeling package, constructional clinoform geometries similar to those preserved in the North Slope clinoform volume (32,400 km3) were simulated. Sediment flux, marine and nonmarine diffusivities, and basin subsidence were systematically varied until a match was found for the foreset and topset slopes, as well as progradation rates over a 6 milion year period. The ability of STRATA to match the seismically interpreted geometries allows us to constrain measures of possible water and sediment discharges consistent with the observed development of the Early Cretaceous c1inoform suite. Simulations indicate that, in order to reproduce observed geometries and trends using constant input parameters, the subsidence rate must be very small, only a fraction of the most likely rate calculated from the seismic data. Constant sediment transport parameters can successfully describe the evolution of the prograding margin only in the absence of tectonic subsidence. However, further work is needed to constrain the absolute magnitude of these values and determine a unique solution for the NPR-A clinoforms.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2004

Description: The most ubiquitous source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to the environment is incomplete combustion. This study generated a high-resolution historical record of pyrogenic PAH emissions since pre-industrial times from anoxic aquatic sediments, allowing for detailed comparison with energy consumption data. We show that an increase in PAH concentrations over the last decade may be due to a rise in emissions from diesel-powered vehicles. Compound-specific radiocarbon measurements demonstrated unequivocally that the proportion of PAHs derived from fossil fuel combustion has increased substantially during the 20th century. δ13C and Δ14C measurements were also used to constrain the relative importance of combustion versus in situ production as sources of perylene. In addition, a comparison of the down-core concentration and isotopic profiles of black carbon (BC) generated by a combination of chemical and/or thermal oxidation methods highlighted the limitations of these methods when applied to sedimentary matrices. Finally, parallel lead and cesium isotopic records revealed two new potential stratigraphic markers in North American sedimentary records. 206Pb/207Pb profiles show a distinct peak in the mid-19th century, while a 137Cs peak was found to coincide with the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

Description: Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (OCE-9708478 and CHE-0089172). The author also acknowledges support from the Brazilian Council for Research (CNPq).

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February, 2005

Description: The goal of this thesis is to investigate three different areas relating to the characterization of dissolved organic matter (DOM): further determination of the chemical compounds present in high molecular weight DOM (HMWDOM), the cycling of individual compounds within the HMWDOM pool, and the biological controls on DOM release. The first section of this thesis provided additional molecular level characterization of HMWDOM. While some individual components have been identified, the total yield of compounds isolated is much smaller than the amount expected by spectroscopic analysis by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Since the majority of the as yet unidentified carbon was inferred to be carbohydrate, periodate over-oxidation was used to analyze this fraction. Analysis of both surface and deep water HMWDOM samples indicated that the majority of the carbon present was periodate over-oxidizable, including 70% of the aliphatic NMR signal. Comparison of the periodate demand for HMWDOM versus that for linear glucopolysaccharide standards indicated that HMWDOM had a greater degree of branching. Based on the changes in the 'H NMR spectra during the reaction, it was concluded that 6-deoxysugars were the primary compounds in the unidentified fraction of HMWDOM. Compound specific radiocarbon analysis can provide information about the cycling and relative ages for individual HMWDOM components. In the second section of this thesis, a new method was presented for the purification of individual underivatized amino acids hydrolyzed from HMWDOM. This new separation protocol utilized various chromatographic techniques, including cation exchange chromatography and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) using C18 and strong cation exchange (SCX) columns. Six amino acids were isolated from a HMWDOM sample with sufficient purity and quantity for radiocarbon analysis. These amino acids had a range of Δ14C values, from 121% to 454%. The final section investigates biological controls on the dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) pool. Total hydrolyzable amino acids (THAA), and nucleic acids were measured for four incubations: a control incubation, a grazer added incubation, a zero virus incubation, and a 10 times virus incubation. Comparison to the control showed THAA and nucleic acid release were influenced by viruses but not grazers.

Description: Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (OCE-981 8654) and the Department of Energy (DEFG0200ERG62999). Student support was also provided by a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2005

Description: This thesis investigates the application of acoustic measurements in the deep and shallow ocean to infer the sound velocity profile (svp) in the seabed. For the deep water ocean, an exact method based on the Gelfand-Levitan integral equation is evaluated. The input data is the complex plane-wave reflection coefficient estimated from measurements of acoustic pressure in water. We apply the method to experimental data and estimate both the reflection coefficient and the seabed svp. A rigorous inversion scheme is hence applied in a realistic problem. For the shallow ocean, an inverse eigenvalue technique is developed. The input data are the eigenvalues associated with propagating modes, measured as a function of source-receiver range. We investigate the estimation of eigenvalues from acoustic fields measured in laterally varying environments. We also investigate the errors associated with estimating varying modal eigenvalues, analogous to the estimation of time-varying frequencies in multicomponent signals, using time-varying autoregressive (TVAR) methods. We propose and analyze two AR sequential estimators, one for model coefficients, another for the zeros of the AR characteristic polynomial. The decimation of the pressure field defined in a discrete range grid is analyzed as a tool to improve AR estimation. The nonlinear eigenvalue inverse problem of estimating the svp from a sequence of eigenvalues is solved by iterating linearized approximations. The solution to the inverse problem is proposed in the form of a Kalman filter. The resolution and variance of the eigenvalue inverse problem are analyzed in terms of the Cramer-Rao lower bound and the Backus-Gilbert (BG) resolution theory. BG theory is applied to the design of shallow-water experiments. A method is developed to compensate for the Doppler deviation observed in experiments with moving sources.

Description: I am grateful for the support of my work provided by the WHOI Academic Programs Office and the Office of Naval Research.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2004

Description: This thesis addressed questions about the Fe cycle by measuring detailed profiles and transects of Fe species in the ocean and also by exploring the use of a new tracer of Fe, Fe isotopic fractionation. In the subtropical and tropical Atlantic Ocean, transects and profiles are presented for dissolved Fe (〈0.4 μm), soluble Fe (〈0.02 μm), and colloidal Fe (0.02 to 0.4 μm). Surface dissolved Fe distributions reflect atmospheric deposition trends with colloidal Fe following dust deposition more strongly than the soluble fraction of Fe. Observed surface maxima and shallow minima in dissolved Fe were always due to variations in the colloidal Fe fraction. Deep-water dissolved and colloidal Fe concentrations vary with water mass source, age, and transport path. Elevated dissolved Fe concentrations (〉1 nmol/kg) were associated with an oxygen minimum zone in the tropical Atlantic at 10°N, 45°W. Fractionation of iron isotopes could be an effective tool to investigate the geochemistr of iron. Trace metal clean plankton tows, river samples, aerosol leachates, and porewater samples were measured for their iron isotopic composition using a GV Instruments IsoProbe Multi-collector ICPMS. The Fe isotopic composition of plankton tow samples vared by over 4% (in 56Fe/54Fe). North Pacific plankton tow samples had isotopically lighter Fe isotopic compositions than samples from the Atlantic. The overall isotopic range observed in the Amazon River system was 1.5%, with variability observed for different types of tributaries. The main channel river dissolved Fe samples and suspended loads were isotopically similar (≈ -0.2 to -0.45% relative to igneous rocks). The isotopically heaviest sample collected was dissolved Fe from an organic rich tributary, the Negro River (+0.16%). In contrast, the suspended load from the Negro River was isotopically light (-1 %). The isotopically lightest sample from the Amazon region was shelf porewater (-1.4%). In river water-seawater mixing experiments, the Fe isotopic signal of dissolved Fe of river water was modified by flocculation of isotopically heavy Fe. The observed range in the Fe isotopic composition of the natural samples including biological and aqueous samples demonstrates that significant and useful fractionation is associated with Fe biogeochemistry in the environment.

Description: This research was supported by NSF grants OCE-0002273 and OCE-99871442. The Amazon field trip was partially funded by the Houghton Fund at MIT. I was funded by the National Physical Science Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Education Office of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Description: Submitted to the MIT Department of Biology and the WHOI Biology Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2006

Description: The physical and biological forces that drive zooplankton distribution and patchiness in an antarctic continental shelf region were examined, with particular emphasis on the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba. This was accomplished by the application of acoustic, video, and environmental sensors during surveys of the region in and around Marguerite Bay, west of the Antarctic Peninsula, in the falls and winters of 2001 and 2002. An important component of the research involved the development and verification of methods for extracting estimates of ecologically-meaningful quantities from measurements of scattered sound. The distribution of acoustic volume backscattering at the single frequency of 120 kHz was first examined as an index of the overall biomass of zooplankton. Distinct spatial and seasonal patterns were observed that coincided with advective features. Improved parameterization was then achieved for a theoretical model of Antarctic krill target strength, the quantity necessary in scaling measurements of scattered sound to estimates of abundance, through direct measurement of all necessary model parameters for krill sampled in the study region and survey period. Methods were developed for identifying and delineating krill aggregations, allowing the distribution of krill to be distinguished from that of the overall zooplankton community. Additional methods were developed and verified for estimating the length, abundance, and biomass of krill in each acoustically-identified aggregation. These methods were applied to multifrequency acoustic survey data, demonstrating strong seasonal, inter-annual, and spatial variability in the distribution of krill biomass. Highest biomass was consistently associated with regions close to land where temperatures at depth were cool. Finally, the morphology, internal structure, and vertical position of individual krill aggregations were examined. The observed patterns of variability in aggregation characteristics between day and night, regions of high versus low food availability, and in the presence or absence of predators, together reinforced the conclusion that aggregation and diel vertical migration represent strategies to avoid visual predators, while also allowing the krill access to shallowly-distributed food resources. The various findings of this work have important implications to the fields of zooplankton acoustics and Antarctic krill ecology, especially in relation to the interactions of the krill with its predators.

Description: Funding was provided by a Fulbright Scholarship, a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Post-Graduate Scholarship, an Office of Naval Research Graduate Traineeship Award in Ocean Acoustics (Grant N00014-03-1-0212), the Comer Science and Education Foundation, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Academic Programs Office.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May, 1976

Description: The acoustic-internal wave interaction in an acoustic waveguide is investigated using wave techniques. Refractive index fluctuations due to the vertical displacements of the internal waves create an inhomogeneous waveguide. The analysis uses weak scattering theory based upon the Rytov perturbation technique. It is found that the internal wave field acts as a diffraction grating in permtting only certain scattered acoustic waves to propagate through the waveguide. Since the internal waves are continuously distributed in wavenumer space, the acoustic fluctuations become a statistical average with a bias toward particular spatial internal wavelengths. The multimode nature of acoustic propagation precludes the linear relationship of internal wave statistics to acoustic amplitude and phase fluctuations. Assuming statistical independence between amplitude and phase fluctuations within a mode and between different modes, it is shown that the total phase-rate fluctuation is a weighted sum of the phase-rate fluctuations in the individual modes. Using a statistical internal wave model [C. Garrett and W. Munk, Geophys. Fluid Dynam., 2, 225-264 (1972)] predictions of acoustic fluctuations are made. Over much of the internal wave frequency band the slope of the phase rate frequency spectrum is between -0.5 and -1.0. The depth dependence for the mean-square phase rate fluctuation has been found. Largest fluctuations occur for shallow and deep receivers. The predicted fluctuations compare favorably with experimental data.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2006

Description: Hurricanes, powerful storms with wind speeds that can exceed 80 m/s, are one of the most destructive natural disasters known to man. While current satellite technology has made it possible to effectively detect and track hurricanes, expensive 'hurricanehunting' aircraft are required to accurately classify their destructive power. Here we show that passive undersea acoustic techniques may provide a promising tool for accurately quantifying the destructive power of a hurricane and so may provide a safe and inexpensive alternative to aircraft-based techniques. It is well known that the crashing of wind-driven waves generates underwater noise in the 10 Hz to 10 kHz range. Theoretical and empirical evidence are combined to show that underwater acoustic sensing techniques may be valuable for measuring the wind speed and determining the destructive power of a hurricane. This is done by first developing a model for the acoustic intensity and mutual intensity in an ocean waveguide due to a hurricane and then determining the relationship between local wind speed and underwater acoustic intensity. Acoustic measurements of the underwater noise generated by hurricane Gert are correlated with meteorological data from reconnaissance aircraft and satellites to show that underwater noise intensity between 10 and 50 Hz is approximately proportional to the cube of the local wind speed. From this it is shown that it should be feasible to accurately measure the local wind speed and quantify the destructive power of a hurricane if its eye wall passes directly over a single underwater acoustic sensor. The potential advantages and disadvantages of the proposed acoustic method are weighed against those of currently employed techniques. It has also long been known that hurricanes generate microseisms in the 0.1 to 0.6 Hz frequency range through the non-linear interaction of ocean surface waves. Here we model microseisms generated by the spatially inhomogeneous waves of a hurricane with the non-linear wave equation where a second-order acoustic field is created by first-order ocean surface wave motion. We account for the propagation of microseismic noise through range-dependent waveguide environments from the deep ocean to a receiver on land. We compare estimates based on the ocean surface wave field measured in hurricane Bonnie with seismic measurements from Florida.

Description: Finally, I am grateful to have been awarded the Office of Naval Research Graduate Traineeship Award in Ocean Acoustics. I also thank the MIT Sea Grant office for funding portions of this research.