The physical properties of marine sediments as inferred from wavelet correlation analysis

Seismic waves traveling in the water/sediment or sub-bottom sediment interface have been the subject of considerable interest in underwater acoustics in recent years. Some progress has been made in understanding the propagation and attenuation characteristics of interface waves in different geological environments. However, the generating mechanisms are poorly understood. In particular, what is the acoustic-seismic energy conversion process? As seismic waves involve both time and space parameters it should be able to relate directly the propagation characteristics of the ocean bottom interface waves to the shear properties of the sediments over the propagation area. To address these problems we have applied the wavelet correlation method (WCR) to examine the variations of bottom characteristics and their role in coupling waterborne sound into the sea bottom. To confirm the validity of the developed modeling technique, we applied the wavelet correlation analysis for synthetic seismograms and field data. In this discussion paper we present images of the first and second shear modes and the interface wave component as a function of arrival time and frequency. We also discuss the possibility of inverting phase and group velocity information directly from the wavelet cross-correlation function and propose the way of using the WCR method to predict physical dynamic parameters of marine sediments.