Geoacoustic Modeling: High-Frequency Scattering from Heterogeneous Rough Sea Beds at Shallow Grazing Angles (extension)

There are different mechanisms of seabed scattering which are due to different types of seabed medium irregularities, which are roughness of the seabed interfaces, and volume heterogeneity: continuous (spatial fluctuations of the sediment acoustic parameters) and discrete scatterers (or sediment inclusions, such as relatively large shells and shell fragments). Given different environmental conditions, frequencies and angles of scattering, relative contributions of these mechanisms can be also different. For example, in the SAX99 situation, the contribution of the volume continuous heterogeneity was shown to be insignificant [1]. For the sediment rough surface scattering, first conclusion was that it is the dominant mechanism in a wide frequency range, roughly 20 kHz to 200 kHz. In later work, however, it was shown that the contribution of the volume continuous heterogeneity in SAX99 environment also can be important, particularly at frequencies above 50 kHz [2,3].