Acquisition of ice properties using mechanical actuation

Research surrounding acoustic resonance properties of ice has increased and now a practical method for depth profiling has been developed. Experiments were performed in real-time with high sensitivity, biaxial, wide bandwidth accelerometers (10 KHz bandwidth), which encompassed a high sampling rate of 200 Kb/sec/channel with a 12-bit resolution (36 dB). The implementation of signal processing produced a seismic and resonant signature. Initially repeated results revealed an accurate correlation between ice depth to its characteristic frequency. The required velocity was determined using the time of arrival and the cross-correlation between transducers. Theoretical analysis has indicated that the system will be capable of resolving values close to the theoretically calculated error of less than 6%; this device therefore can be readily realized as a compact portable field instrument.