14: Geoacoustic Inversion in Shallow Water

A critical knowledge gap in our understanding of the interaction of sound with the ocean bottom is the frequency dependence of sound speed and attenuation in marine sediments. The long term goals of this research project are related to the investigation of dispersion of sound speed and attenuation at low frequencies (< 2 kHz) in different types of marine sediments. The research involves development of effective experimental methods and inversion techniques to enable estimation of geoacoustic model parameters and their uncertainties over a broad frequency range from tens of Hz to several kHz. The wider context of this research is to achieve improved sonar system performance through greater understanding of the physics of the interaction of sound with the ocean bottom.