A sea bottom multichannel hydrophone array

The PUMA (Pull-Up Multichannel Array) is a sea-bottom instrument for remotely recording data from a 12 channel hydrophone array. Its purpose is to achieve (i) denser data coverage, leading to (ii) improved velocity analysis and (iii) multichannel processing of wide angle seismic data collected on the continental shelf. The instrument consists of a 1.2 km array terminating with a pressure case in which 8 FM cassette recorders, a power supply, microprocessor controller and internal clock are housed. It can be pre-programmed to switch on during shot windows for a total of four hours recording time.The PUMA was successfully used in an experiment west of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, U.K. in August–September 1984. We show an example of PUMA data from this experiment. Indications are that the instrument will provide improved constraints on seismic velocities in the lower continental crust and uppermost mantle.