Abstract: Backscatter from the seabed can, for certain sediment types, frequencies and angles, be dominated by volume scatter from within the seabed. In the frequencies above about 100kHz, the penetration is small and gross layering within the seabed is not of concern. However, the scatter from the volume at these shallow depths is determined by the inhomogeneities in the sediment properties, in particular their correlation structure. The sensitivity of the backscatter to the spatial correlation structure of the scatterers is highlighted in this paper.