Abstract:
A marine vessel streams a plurality of hydrophones while sequentially generating acoustic waves along a marine traverse at spaced-apart intervals to provide common depth point coverage of reflecting horizons within the water layer. The hydrophones receive reflections from the water layer to generate signals which are then recorded. Cross-correlations are taken of selected gates of the signals, the gates being related to one another in dependence upon the horizontal spacing between ones of the hydrophones. Acoustic velocity is the variable in the crosscorrelations. The cross-correlation products are summed to produce a composite velocity correlation function, the peak point of which provides an indication of the acoustic velocity of the underwater section through which the reflections of the acoustic waves travel. Arithmetic operations are performed on the acoustic velocities to provide a substantially real-time profile of the acoustic velocity of the intervals between the underwater reflecting horizons.