Tomography is a word derived from the Greek words for slice and picture; i.e., a 3D image made from 2D slices or sections of the object. MST is a method of obtaining high resolution, nearly synoptic 3D maps of the ocean temperature structure. In this experiment, acoustic travel times were measured along a multitude of paths crossing at many different angles and then reconstructed as the sound speed (temperature) field in a manner analogous to a medical CAT-scan. The MST experiment was the definitive demonstration of ocean acoustic tomography. Six acoustic transceivers were moored in a pentagonal array, with one at the center, while a ship-suspended vertical line array receiver circumnavigated the moorings on a 1000-km diameter between Bermuda and Puerto Rico. This work was a collaborative effort with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Michigan. The efforts were supported by the Office of Naval Technology and the Office of Naval Research.
The AMODE-MST Group, Moving ship tomography in the Western North Atlantic Ocean, EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 75, No. 2, 94, 17, 21, 23, January 11, 1994.