Estimation of low frequency sound attenuation in marine sediments

Abstract

This paper presents a method for estimating low frequency sound attenuation from information contained in normal modes of a broadband signal. Propagating modes are resolved using the time-warping technique applied to signals from light bulb sound sources deployed at relatively short ranges of 5 and 7 km in the Shallow Water ’06 experiment. A sequential inversion approach is designed that uses specific features of the acoustic data that are highly sensitive to specific geoacoustic model parameters. The first feature is the modal group velocity which is inverted for sediment sound speed and sediment layer thickness. The second feature is the modal amplitude function which is inverted for water depth and receiver depths. The third feature is related to the modal amplitude spectrum and is inverted for source depth and sound attenuation. In each subsequent stage, estimates from the previous stage(s) are used as known values. The sequential inversion is stable and generates geoacoustic model parameter estimates that agree very well with results from other experiments carried out in the same region. Notably, the inversion obtains an estimated value of 0.08 dB/λ in the band 120–180 Hz for the de-watered marine sediment characteristic of the continental shelf at the site.