15: Probabilistic Geoacoustic Inversion in Complex Environments

Propagation and reverberation of acoustic fields in shallow water depend strongly on the spatial variability of seabed geoacoustic parameters, and lack of knowledge of seabed variability is often a limiting factor in acoustic modeling applications. However, direct sampling (e.g., coring) of vertical and lateral variability is expensive and laborious, and long-range inversion methods can fail to provide sufficient resolution. For proper quantitative examination of variability, parameter uncertainty must be quantified first which can be particularly challenging for large data sets, and in range-dependent and/or dispersive seabed environments.