High-Frequency Sound Interaction in Ocean Sediments

Our long-term goal is to develop accurate models for high-frequency scattering from, penetration into, and propagation within shallow water sediments. Reaching this goal requires a better understanding of several fundamental issues pertinent to high-frequency sediment acoustics. These issues include an understanding of the dominant scatterers versus frequency near the sediment surface, the potential need for poroelastic sediment models, the appropriateness of stochastic descriptions of sediment heterogeneities, the importance of single versus multiple scattering in sediments, and an understanding of the physical and biological processes that determine sediment structure.