| The natural gas seepages from the sea floor are commonly recognized acoustically by the flare shaped acoustic images, spreading vertically through the water column. These acoustic images, which are made up of echoes from numerous gas bubbles, convey a lot of information about features of individual bubbles and bubbling vents in whole. To study the ecological role of methane gas bubble streams it is important to obtain such data, especially: the area of a venting site; total number of bubbles, released per a time period; size spectrum and rise velocity of bubbles at different depths through the water column. An approach based on the use of calibrated echo-sounder, digital data recording and processing techniques can provide adequate quantitative analysis of... |
