Seabed shear modulus profile inversion using surface gravity (water) wave-induced bottom motion

Abstract

Summary. The motion of a layered seabed induced by propagating gravity water waves is modelled by the coupling matrix for a massless incompressible elastic bed according to Yamamoto. An amplitude inversion scheme is developed to extract the bottom shear modulus profile from the motion of the seabed at a point on the bed surface using the linear inverse theory combined with the Yamamoto theory of wave-seabed interaction. Numerical tests using synthetic data without noise confirmed that the inversion is unique and consistent. The inversion technique is applied to a set of field data from the Mississippi River Delta. A good agreement is obtained between the inverted profile and the direct measurements.