Observable parameters from multipath bottom reverberation in shallow water

Multipath ocean reverberation originating from the seabed in shallow isovelocity water, with particular attention to its information content in the cylindrical spreading and mode stripping regions, is considered. The reverberation is evaluated using Weston's flux integral method, both analytically with various simplifying approximations and numerically with all but one of these approximations rescinded. The functional form of the analytical solution is used to infer which physical seabed parameters can be extracted from measurements of reverberation. Coarse- and fine-grained sediments (sand and clay) are both considered. The main purpose of the numerical solutions is to check the accuracy of the analytical approximations; they also serve as a convenient surrogate for measured reverberation.