Grain size analysis is an essential tool for classifying sedimentary environments. The calculation of statistics for many samples can, however, be a laborious process. A computer program called GRADISTAT has been written for the rapid analysis of grain size statistics from any of the standard measuring techniques, such as sieving and laser granulometry. Mean, mode, sorting, skewness and other statistics are calculated arithmetically and geometrically (in metric units) and logarithmically (in phi units) using moment and Folk and Ward graphical methods. Method comparison has allowed Folk and Ward descriptive terms to be assigned to moments statistics. Results indicate that Folk and Ward measures, expressed in metric units, appear to provide the most robust basis for routine comparisons of compositionally variable sediments. The program runs within the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet package and is extremely versatile, accepting standard and non-standard size data, and producing a range of graphical outputs including frequency and ternary plots.

Shape is a fundamental property of all objects, including sedimentary particles, but it remains one of the most difficult to characterize and quantify for all but the simplest of shapes. Despite a large literature on the subject, there remains widespread confusion regarding the meaning and relative value of different measures of particle shape. This paper re‐examines the basic concepts of particle shape and suggests a number of new and modified methods which are widely applicable to a range of sedimentological problems; it is shown that the most important aspects of particle form are represented by the I/L ratio (elongation ratio) and S/I ratio (flatness ratio). A combination of these two ratios can be used to classify particles in terms of 25 form classes. A method of obtaining a quantitative measure of particle roundness using simple image analysis software is described, and a new visual roundness comparator is presented. It is recommended that measurements of both roundness and circularity (a proxy measure of sphericity) are made on grain images in three orthogonal orientations and average values calculated for each particle. A further shape property, irregularity, is defined and a classification scheme proposed for use in describing and comparing irregular or branching sedimentary particles such as chert and coral.

This paper provides a review of different particle size scales, size class terminology and particle size distribution (‘textural’) classification schemes which are widely used in sedimentology, geomorphology, soil science, aquatic ecology and civil engineering. It is concluded that a revised system of size class nomenclature, based on the Udden (1898) and Wentworth (1922) schemes, provides the most logical and consistent framework for use with sediments and a wide range of other particulate materials. A refined scheme is proposed which has five first‐order size classes (boulder, gravel, sand, silt and clay), each of which has five second‐order subdivisions with limits defined at one phi intervals. The scheme is simple and intuitively easy to understand. The paper also provides a review of previous schemes that have been proposed to describe and classify sediments on the basis of the proportions of gravel, sand and mud, or sand, silt and clay using trigons (also termed ternary diagrams). Many of these schemes do not have a logical basis and provide limited or uneven resolution. New gravel, sand and mud and sand, silt and clay classification systems are proposed that are both more logical and provide greater discriminatory power than previous schemes; they are therefore more suitable for use in environmental and forensic investigations. A new Microsoft Excel® program, freely available to download from http://www.kpal.co.uk, allows rapid classification of sediments based on the proportions of gravel, sand and mud and sand, silt and clay proportions and graphical comparison of the data for different sample groups.

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Laser diffraction is now widely used for particle size distribution analysis of sediments and soils. The technique can be very precise, and offers advantages of speed and cost over many other methods when used to analyse mixtures of sand, silt and clay. This study presents the results of an experimental investigation that examined the sensitivity of the Beckman-Coulter LS230 instrument to mixtures of different grain populations and differences in particle shape. The instrument was found to have high sensitivity to coarse particles in a finer matrix (detection threshold 1-2%), but much lower sensitivity to finer particles in a coarser mixture (detection threshold 12-17%). Experiments using near-spherical ballotini showed that laser analysis provides very similar values to dry sieving for the mean, median and mode, but for a range of natural sand samples values for the mean, median and mode were offset by 8-21%, with an average of ca 15%, compared with sieving. Analysis using a Beckman-Coulter RapidVUE instrument, which provides both size and shape information, provided support for the hypothesis that the differences between laser analysis and sieving are partly attributable to the effects of particle shape. However, an additional factor is the way in which the laser software interprets the optical diffraction data. The software predicts a high degree of log-normality in the size distribution, such that highly skewed, truncated or bimodal samples are poorly represented. Experiments using sieved fractions of ballotini indicated that, even with near-perfectly spherical particles, the particle size distribution predicted by the laser software includes a relatively large percentage of particles outside the sieve class limits.Particle size distribution analysis of sands by laser diffraction 685

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Particle size distribution is a fundamental property of any sediment or soil, and particle size determination can provide important clues to sediment provenance. For forensic work, the particle size distribution of sometimes very small samples requires precise determination using a rapid and reliable method with a high resolution. A protocol has been developed using a Coulter™ LS230 laser granulometer, which can analyse particles in the size range 0.04 μm–2000μm. The technique is essentially non-destructive, permitting the recovery of critical samples, and has been demonstrated to have high precision for a range of soils, sediments and powders of interest in forensic investigations.