ESTIMATION OF THE ELASTIC PROPERTIES OF SEAFLOOR SEDIMENTS BY INVERSION OF PRECRITICAL REFLECTION DATA

A method has been presented for estimating the elastic properties of sea-floor sediment by inverting the amplitude-range information of precritical reflection data. The method was tested using synthetic data for reflection from a half-space sediment model, and the estimated values for the P- and S-wave speeds and the density were in good agreement with the geoacoustic model parameters. The synthetic data were also used to determine the sensitivity of the method to interference from reflections from subbottom layers. In most practical cases the interference is not likely to be a problem for precritical reflection data. The method was then applied to measurements of seafloor reflection obtained in an experiment carried out off the west coast of Canada. The estimated values of the elastic properties of the topmost sediment layer were consistent with values available from the literature, and with estimates from other experiments carried out in the same region.