Geoacoustic inversion and appraisal

Determining seabed geoacoustic parameters from measured ocean acoustic fields is a challenging inverse problem due to the large number of local minima in the parameter search space, correlations between parameters, and a wide range of parameter sensitivities. A complete approach to this problem consists of constructing a preferred model that fits the data in an optimal manner (inversion), together with quantitative estimates of the uncertainty of each model parameter (appraisal). This paper presents efficient approaches to inversion and appraisal for the geoacoustic inverse problem based on matched-field methods. The approaches are illustrated using a synthetic test case from the 1997 Geoacoustic Inversion Workshop, and applied to a geoacoustic survey carried out in the Mediterranean Sea