The Geoacoustic Laboratory

The Geoacoustic Laboratory of the University of Miami (UM-GAL) was established by Professor Tokuo Yamamoto in 1980. The main interest of UM-GAL is the physics of wave-earth interactions of all kinds. UM-GAL has received 15 grants and contracts amounting to over five million dollars from the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, Oil Companies and the Japanese Science and Technology Agencies.

UM-GAL has been engaged in many field experiment projects. Among the past and present UM-GAL research projects are the wave-seabed interactions, the seabed and crustal inversion using gravity waves, the propagation and scattering of acoustic waves through marine sediments, the 3-D seismic system "Kite", the porosity, permeability and shear strength (P*2S) cross-well tomography system, the long term observation of the gravity waves and microseisms.

Six U.S. patents have been awarded for the new geophysical methods and instrumentation including the bottom shear modulus profiler, the autonomous instrument burial system, the buried ocean wave directional spectrometer and the P*2S tomography system.

last update 2002/08/06