Guest Editorial An Overview of the Seabed Characterization Experiment

A broad overview of the field work conducted during the SBCEX has been provided. SBCEX included a comprehensive subbottom chirp profile of the experimental area, about 200 sediment cores, and a number of direct in situ measurements of the acoustic properties of the seabed. Numerous acoustic propagation measurements throughout the experimental site provided data for inversion processes and statistical inference techniques to remotely sense the acoustic properties of the bottom. The scientific plan of these measurements and the supporting oceanographic and environmental measurements allowed the various principal investigators to begin to achieve the goals outlined in the introduction of this editorial, and thereby increase the community's understanding of the acoustic properties of the fi ne-grained sediment at the site.