Progress and prospects of seismic oceanography

• Published in: Deep-sea research. Part I, Oceanographic research papers Vol. 177; p. 103631
• Main Authors: Song, Haibin, Chen, Jiangxin, Pinheiro, Luis Menezes, Ruddick, Barry, Fan, Wenhao, Gong, Yi, Zhang, Kun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2021
• Subjects: Eddy; Internal solitary waves; Quantitative methods; Seafloor process; Seismic oceanography; Seismic oceanography; Internal solitary waves; Quantitative methods; Eddy; Seafloor process
• ISSN: 0967-0637; 1879-0119
• DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr.2021.103631

Seismic oceanography has the advantages of high resolution, fast acquisition and the availability large amounts of legacy data. Almost 20 years of studies of seismic oceanography allowed the following progress: 1) high-resolution imaging of various oceanic features such as mesoscale/sub-mesoscale eddies, internal waves/solitary waves, oceanic fronts, thermohaline staircases etc; 2) the setup of a series of quantitative methods which include thermohaline structure inversion, internal wave wave-number spectra estimation, turbulence dissipation rate estimation and current velocity calculation; 3) detailed studies of seafloor processes; 4) high potential of simultaneous seismic oceanography and physical Oceanography investigations. Main prospects for near future include: 1) higher resolution seismic acquisition, further exploiting of 3D and prestack data/time-lapse data; 2) more detailed studies of submesoscale oceanic features; 3) expected new results on submarine current flow-topography interactions, and seafloor processes. •Almost 20 years of studies of seismic oceanography progresses are overviewed.•Main prospects of seismic oceanography for near future are summarized.•Regions where seismic oceanography has been applied are shown.