The discovery of the underwater sound channel, experimental studies, and regional differences

More than half a century has passed since the discovery of the underwater sound channel. In this period of time, the Acoustics Institute has performed a number of experiments on the long-range propagation of explosion-generated sound signals in different ocean regions. These experiments included the studies of such phenomena as the frequency-dependent sound attenuation in the sea medium and the sound field formation in the underwater sound channel. A combined analysis of the data obtained revealed considerable regional differences in the time structure of the sound field. In the experiments, a number of phenomena were observed that required special explanation and additional theoretical treatment. These phenomena include: the unexpectedly high attenuation of low-frequency sound in the sea medium, the "spectrum-analyzing" properties of the underwater sound channel in the Black Sea, the existence of the reverberation forerunner (the so-called prereverberation), the frequency-independent deviation of the phase shift from the usual value of 90 degrees between the signals in classical quartets differing in the number of contacts with the caustic, the splitting of individual signals into quartets, and the transformation of these quartets into groups of nearly irresolvable signals at long distances. The most interesting data of the aforementioned studies are described in the present paper.