ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: INTRODUCTION Over the past 18 years the author and several colleagues have developed a mathematical model designed to predict the propagation characteristics of acoustic waves in marine sediments. The model is based on the classical work of Maurice Biot who developed a comprehensive theory for the mechanics of porous, deformable media in a series of papers spanning the time period from 1941 to 1973. Since our objective was to develop a practical working model that could be used as a guide in planning and interpreting experimental work, we began with the simplest possible form of the model and added various complexities only as they were needed to explain new variations in the data that were obtained. Thus the number of material parameters that had to be measured or assumed at any stage in the development of the model was kept to a minimum. Since the first version of the model was introduced in 1970, we have published over twenty technical papers covering various stages of its development and many papers have been published by colleagues who have utilized our work in various ways. This monograph is an attempt to summarize the development and use of the model to date. Acoustic waves in ocean sediments may be considered as a limiting case in the more general category of mechanical waves that can propagate in fluid-saturated porous media. The general problem of wave motion in this kind of material has been studied extensively over the past thirty years by engineers, geophysicists and acousticians for a variety of reasons. In some cases, interest is focused on low-frequency waves of rather large amplitude, such as those that arise near the source of an earthquake or near a building housing heavy, vibrating machinery. At other times, the main interest is in waves of low frequency and amplitude that have traversed long distances through the sediment. In still another category, high-frequency waves that are able to resolve thin layering and other fine structural details are of interest in studying near-bottom sediments. Thus the full spread of frequency and amplitude has been studied for geological materials ranging from soft, unconsolidated sediments to rock. Because of the almost limitless combinations of different types of sediment, stratification and structure, accurate mathematical description of the wave field produced by a particular source can be constructed only if accurate descriptions of the acoustic properties of individual components can be specified. These properties depend on the geological history of the sediment deposit, on the frequency content of the wave field and on a number of other factors that depend on the environment in situ. A survey of the literature suggests that there are a number of parameters that play principal roles in controlling the dynamic response of saturated sediments...