A preliminary sediment model for the Shallow-Water-2006 Experimental site on the New Jersey Coast

Abstract

A preliminary sediment model for the Shallow-Water-2006 Experiment site on the continental shelf off New Jersey is presented. This sediment model will describe the bottom as layers of sediments with different properties. The layering information will be based on geological, geophysical, and stratigraphy models. This layered approach to sediment modeling coupled with the Biot–Stoll (with reduced number of parameters) or Buckingham model (to define the sediment geoacoustic properties) has the potential for an efficient parametrization to set up a 3D sediment inversion scheme. The surface sediment description will be based on the ESME (effect of sound on marine environment) sediment models for the U.S. East Coast. This sediment model, developed as part of the ESME initiative, draws from a variety of data sources, including the sediment texture database maintained by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Other sources of data which will be used to develop the preliminary sediment model include published sediment core data from the region and inversions results. This study will provide sediment data for the preliminary experimental design efforts prior to the experiment in 2006. [Work supported by ONR.]