Seismo-Acoustic Benchmark Problems Involving Sloping Fluid–Solid Interfaces

The accuracy of the seismo-acoustic parabolic equation is tested for problems involving sloping fluid–solid interfaces. The fluid may correspond to the ocean or a sediment layer that only supports compressional waves. The solid may correspond to ice cover or a sediment layer that supports compressional and shear waves. The approach involves approximating the medium in terms of a series of range-independent regions, using a parabolic wave equation to propagate the field through each region, and applying single-scattering approximations to obtain transmitted fields across the vertical interfaces between regions. The accuracy of the parabolic equation method for range-dependent problems in seismo-acoustics was previously tested in the small slope limit. It is tested here for problems involving larger slopes using a finite-element model to generate reference solutions.