Size Distribution of Disaggregated Inorganic Suspended Sediment: Southern New Jersey Inner Continental Shelf

Abstract

ABSTRACT Size analyses of southern New Jersey inner shelf suspended sediment performed by a combination of pipette and Coulter Counter methods suggest that as much as 75 percent of the dispersed inorganic suspensate is finer than 0.5 µm. The size distribution of inner shelf suspended sediment exhibited little variation, although larger quantities of silt were encountered near turbid, tidal inlets. Previous textural analyses of inorganic suspended sediment by microscope or electronic particle sizer may have underestimated the proportion of grains smaller than 0.5 µm. Fine-grained sediment size analyses which ignore grains finer than 0.5 µm may neglect a significant portion of the sediment mud fraction.