Effective Low-Frequency Geoacoustic Properties Inferred from Measurements in the Northeast Atlantic

Abstract

The performance of surveillance systems mounted, suspended, or towed near the bottom is governed in part by the nature of the acoustic bottom interaction. Bottom properties affecting this interaction include, among others, the spatial variation of sound speed, density, and attenuation. Specification of these bottom properties is generally referred to as a geoacoustic model. Research to date has, to a large degree, involved the quest for appropriate geoacoustic models and their validation by comparison of measured and model-predicted bottom-loss functions.

The effects of sediment porosity on acoustic reflection and transmission at the seafloor

“…The great bulk of modeling efforts of acoustic interaction with the seafloor in the ocean acoustics community have considered the seafloor sediments to be modelable as a fluid [e.g., Ingenito (1973), Ellis and Chapman (1980), Rubano (1980), Dicus and Anderson (1982), and Brocher (1983)]. The fluid model has been sufficient in fact to successfully predict various measures of a propagating acoustic field: most commonly transmission loss.…”