Seismic-like scaling regime in impulse reflection from underwater sediment

Abstract

A universal scaling law is known empirically to characterize the high-frequency decay of bandpassed seismic coda. An explanation advanced for this universality, based on multiple-Rayleigh scatter of nonuniform strength, is generic enough to suggest that similar scaling may apply to decay of the impulse response in other random media. A submerged sand layer is probed experimentally as a candidate for such a medium, and its incoherent acoustic impulse reflection is found to have an exponential decay regime similar to that in seismology.