ASA 126th Meeting Denver 1993 October 4-8

5aUW6. Propagation and signal coherence in bottom-limited shallow water environments.

F. J. Ryan

Ocean and Atmospheric Sci. Div., Code 541, NRaD, San Diego, CA 92152-5000

L. A. Shook

NRaD, San Diego, CA 92152-5000

Simulation results will be presented for complex shallow water environments off the southern California coast. The study focuses on downslope propagation from sources in shallow water to deeper bottomed sensors. The environment is a thinly sedimented series of terraces separated by steep slopes. A very high fidelity geoacoustic bottom model, SEABEAM-type bathymetry and dense synoptic oceanographic measurements are used to compute pressure fields using PE codes. Examples of spatial signal coherence and spatial variability will be shown. The question of the effects of environmental data spatial resolution (bathymetry and sub-bottom) on computed signal fields will be addressed.