1. A volume interaction experiment in the South China Sea (SCS), with Taiwan and Singapore

as the primary collaborators. The main goal of this experiment was to understand acoustic propagation through shallow water when strong oceanic variability in the form of fronts, eddies, boundary layers, and internal waves is present. The SCS experiment was executed from the Taiwanese Research Vessels, Ocean Researcher 1 (OR1), Fisheries Researcher 1 (FR1) and Ocean Researcher 3 (OR3)

The OR1 cruises were to:

• Deploy oceanographic moorings,
• Survey the area with the SEASOAR towed undulating vehicle and hull mounted ADCP, and
• recover oceanographic moorings

The FR1 cruises were to:

• Deploy and recover heavier sound resources arrays.

The OR3 cruises were done basically to characterize the environment along the primary transmission paths using a towed CTD, high frequency acoustics and towed acoustic source. It had a total of three cruises. The SCS volume interaction experiment did simultaneous observations of the water column properties and acoustic propagation characteristics at very high resolution in space and time. For this task a combination of moored and shipboard observations near the continental shelf break between the southern tip of Taiwan and Dongsha Island (Patris Reef) bounded by 21 to 22.5ºN, 117 to 119ºE. On this cruise the acoustic and oceanographic mooring were deployed by the OR1 and FR1, then the OR1 and OR3 carried out the repeat surveys of the environment. On another cruise, the OR1 and FR1 wen back out to recover the moorings. The sub bottom structure along the acoustic transmission paths was also sampled on the FR1 recovery cruise, using the FAU Deep Tow Chirp.