SOUNDINGS

BOOK REVIEWS
P. L. Marston
Physics Department, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164

These reviews of books and other forms of information express the opinions of the individual reviewers
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Editorial Board of this Journal.

Editorial Policy: If there is a negative review, the author of the book will be given a chance to respond to
the review in this section of the Journal and the reviewer will be allowed to respond to the author’s
comments. [See ‘‘Book Reviews Editor’s Note,’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 81, 1651 (May 1987).]

tion, simple illustrative models, such as one employing multiple image

An Introduction to Underwater Acoustics
Xavier Lurton
Springer, New York, 2002
347 pp. Price: $89.95 (hardcover), ISBN 3540429670.
This book is a general survey of Underwater Acoustics, intended to
make the subject ‘‘as easily accessible as possible, with a clear emphasis on
applications.’’ In this the author has succeeded, with a wide variety of sub-
jects presented with minimal derivation, that task being deliberately left to
other sources. A book of this breadth must be compared to Urick’s classic,
Principles of Underwater Sound. A joke among some theoretically inclined
underwater acousticians is that, while none will admit to using this ‘‘cook-
book,’’ all have copies within reach just in case the real world of noise and
reverberation intrudes. Lurton’s book provides coverage of several subjects
not found in Urick, with material on nonmilitary uses of underwater acous-
tics and deeper treatment of signal processing, including beamforming.
There is an emphasis on technology and on intuitive physical explanation,
with somewhat fewer of the curves, tables, and nomograms marked by
dog-eared pages in Urick. Still, there are many useful formulas and curves,
such as the Francois–Garrison absorption equations, the Chen–Millero
sound-speed formulas, the Knudson noise curves, expressions for the
strengths of simple targets, etc.
This book seems best suited to a graduate survey course for nonspe-
cialists where it might, in the author’s words, ‘‘arouse vocations for acous-
tics, both in students and in scientists...’’ For new practitioners, it would
serve as an introduction and portal to the primary literature. For example,
the treatment of sound propagation in the ocean waveguide is quite brief and
would require use of cited references in many applications. In compensa-
sources, are presented with emphasis on ray methods. Outlines are given of
the parabolic equation and modal methods, and these methods are supported
by short appendixes, as are several other of the more technical subjects. The
treatment of scattering by the ocean surface and bottom is balanced, brief,
yet self-contained, and the chapter on acoustic mapping systems with ac-
companying color plates offers a wide-ranging description of several impor-
tant techniques. A section on the use of decibels will be welcomed by stu-
dents wondering whether a factor of 10 or a factor of 20 should precede the
logarithm, although the somewhat cavalier use of units preferred in under-
water acoustics is followed throughout. Thus, source voltage sensitivity is
expressed in dB re: 1 ␮Pa/1 m/1 V, implying that one should multiply by
range to get pressure, when division is required. Similarly, interface scatter-
ing strength is the decibel equivalent of a dimensionless quantity, but is
expressed as dB re: 1 m2. Perhaps it’s not the job of a book at this level to
rectify these erroneous conventions, but they do little to advance learning. A
short section on real, analytic, and quadrature signal representations is mod-
ern and useful, although more consistent notation would help the student
sort out the differences. The book has numerous typographical errors and
difficulties in translation. Some translation problems, such as ‘‘writes as’’ for
‘‘can be written as’’ are innocuous, but some, such as ‘‘swell spectrum’’ for
‘‘wave spectrum,’’ could cause difficulty. If these problems are fixed in a
future edition, Lurton’s handsome book will be a full realization of the
author’s goal of making his subject accessible to a wide audience.
DARRELL R. JACKSON
Applied Physics Laboratory
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington 98105

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 115 (2), February 2004 0001-4966/2004/115(2)/443/1/$20.00 © 2004 Acoustical Society of America 443

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