In situ measurements of sediment acoustic properties in Currituck Sound and comparison to models

In situ measurements of compressional and shear wave speed and attenuation were collected 30 cm below the water-sediment interface in Currituck Sound, North Carolina at two field locations having distinctly different sediment types: medium-to-fine-grained sand and fine-grained sand with approximately 10% mud content. Shear wave measurements were performed with bimorph transducers to generate and receive horizontally polarized shear waves in the 300 Hz to 1 kHz band, and compressional wave measurements were performed using hydrophones operated in the 5 kHz to 100 kHz band. Sediment samples were collected at both measurement sites and later analyzed in the laboratory to characterize the sediment grain size distribution for each field location. Compressional and shear wave speed and attenuation were estimated from the acoustic measurements, and preliminary comparisons to the extended Biot model by Chotiros and Isakson [J. Acoust. Soc. 135, 3264-3279 (2014)] and the viscous grain-shearing theory by Buckingham [J. Acoust. Soc. 136, 2478-2488 (2014)] were performed.