The Airy phase of explosive sounds in shallow water

The Airy phase is identified in the received signals from explosive charges deployed in a shallow water acoustic experiment conducted in the New England Mudpatch region during the spring of 2017. Measured and modeled time-frequency dispersion curves are compared and a geoacoustic sensitivity study utilizing marginal probability distributions for the sound speed in five sediment layers is performed. The analysis suggests that inclusion of the Airy phase frequency and arrival time in a geoacoustic-inversion method could lower the uncertainty of sound speed parameter estimation in a multi-layer sediment as compared to methods that do not include the Airy phase structure.