Grain size analysis

Abstract

Grain size analysis is an analytical technique typically conducted within the earth sciences and implemented as a routine laboratory study. Other disciplines, such as archaeology and geoarchaeology, also use it regularly. It is a sedimentological analysis carried out in order to determine the size of the different particles that constitute a particular unconsolidated sedimentary deposit, sedimentary rock, archaeological locus, or soil unit. The main goal of this procedure is to determine the type of environment and energy associated with the transport mechanism at the time of deposition; this is done by inference from the sizes of the sediment particles analyzed and their distributions.