UACE2017 Proceedings: Overview of Seabed Characterization Experiment 2017

• Session:
  Ocean and river sediment characterization using acoustics
• Paper:
  Overview of Seabed Characterization Experiment 2017
• Author(s):
  Preston S. Wilson, David P. Knobles
• Abstract:
  An overview of the multinational, multi-institutional, multidisciplinary research project, the Seabed Characterization Experiment, will be presented. The project is focused on studying the acoustics of fine-grained ocean bottom sediments, and took place over the course of two pilot studies, in 2015 and 2016, and through a five-week-long, three-ship effort that was completed in April 2017. The location of the study is known as the New England Mud Patch, about 60 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA, in about 70 meters of water. The goals of the project are four-fold: (1) to understand the physical mechanisms that control acoustic propagation in fine-grained sediments, (2) to quantify uncertainties in the estimation of seabed parameters, (3) to correlate the observed horizontal variations in the acoustical field with the measured horizontal variability of the seabed and (4) to assess the performance of the resulting geoacoustic models, and inversion and statistical inference methods. These goals have been pursued by obtaining direct measurements and/or inferring the values of the following parameters: compressional wave speed and attenuation, shear wave speed and attenuation, seabed roughness and volume scattering, and seabed layering and gradients. An emphasis was placed on obtaining parameter values over a wide frequency band and on understanding both the deterministic and stochastic aspects of environment. Oceanographic data was collected to inform both forward and inverse modeling efforts. This presentation will provide an overview of the project and its participants, and serves to further introduce this large-scale effort to the international underwater acoustics community. [Work sponsored by the US Navy Office of Naval Research and ONR Global.]
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Contact details

• Contact person:
  Prof Preston Wilson
• e-mail:
  
• Affiliation:
  The Univ. of Texas at Austin
• Country:
  United States