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Capabilities

The Sediment Lab supports a wide range of projects at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center by providing data derived from grain size, mineralogy, suspended sediment, and sedimentary character analyses. We are continually seeking to grow our analytical capabilities and incorporate instrumentation into our laboratory to support USGS science.

Our current capabilities and methods in the Sediment Lab are:

  • Grain Size Analysis
    • Coarse fraction sieve, fine fraction Laser Diffraction
    • Coarse fraction sieve, fine fraction Multisizer
  • Carbonate Content
    • Bulk organics and carbonate content through Loss on Ignition
    • Carbonate content through HCl digestion
  • Water Content
  • Paleo Washing (wet sediment sieving, > 63 microns retained)
  • X-ray Powder Diffraction (qualitative or semi-quantitative analysis)
  • X-ray Fluorescence
  • Suspended Sediment Concentration
  • Loss on Ignition
  • Bulk Density
  • Dry Bulk Density
  • Total Carbon and Calcium Carbonate