Application of the concurrent geo and bio-acoustic inversion method (Diachok and Wales, 2005) to broadband (0.3–5 kHz) transmission loss (TL) measurements, and co-located normal incidence chirp sonar measurements provided measures of geo-acoustic properties of clayey-silt in the Santa Barbara Channel. Inversion calculations assumed that the geological environment may be characterized by the interfacial sound speed, unconsolidated layer thickness, sound speed gradient, g, and geo-alpha, αG; and that the biological environment may be characterized by the layer depth, layer thickness, and bio-alpha (attenuation coefficient within the layer). Co-located cores provided ground truth; echo sounder and trawl measurements provided biological truth. Both the concurrent inversion and the chirp-based methods yielded approximately the same value of g, 6.5/s, in the top 9 m thick layer of clayey-silt. The value of αG, based on TL measurements, was quite low, approximately 0.02 dB/λ, in good agreement with Holland and Dosso’s (2013) only previously reported in-situ estimate of geo-alpha in silty-clay in this frequency-depth range. These results have important implications for estimation of geo parameters from TL measurements in biologically intense environments. Refinements to envisioned follow-on experiments will be discussed. [This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research Ocean Acoustics Program.]Application of the concurrent geo and bio-acoustic inversion method (Diachok and Wales, 2005) to broadband (0.3–5 kHz) transmission loss (TL) measurements, and co-located normal incidence chirp sonar measurements provided measures of geo-acoustic properties of clayey-silt in the Santa Barbara Channel. Inversion calculations assumed that the geological environment may be characterized by the interfacial sound speed, unconsolidated layer thickness, sound speed gradient, g, and geo-alpha, αG; and that the biological environment may be characterized by the layer depth, layer thickness, and bio-alpha (attenuation coefficient within the layer). Co-located cores provided ground truth; echo sounder and trawl measurements provided biological truth. Both the concurrent inversion and the chirp-based methods yielded approximately the same value of g, 6.5/s, in the top 9 m thick layer of clayey-silt. The value of αG, based on TL measurements, was quite low, approximately 0.02 dB/λ, in good agreement with Holland and D...