Mean grain-size and sorting of sediments from the Piedra Buena contourite terrace
Description
The dataset contains results of grain-size analyses of sediments after removing the biogenic calcium carbonate, the biogenic opal and organics. Grain-size analyses were performed using a SALD-2300 laser diffraction particle size analyzer (Shimadzu, Japan), which yields a size spectrum from 17 nm to 2.5 mm. Grain-size analysis was performed both on the bulk sediment samples and calcium carbonate-free samples. Hydrochloric acid (10%) was used to remove biogenic calcium carbonate. For core AI-3442, where the radiolarian content is relatively high compared to the rest of the cores, the biogenic opal was removed using 1M sodium hydroxide solution (NaOH). H2O2 was used to remove organics. Sodium hexametaphosphate solution (Na6P6O18, 0.7%) and ultrasonication (1 min) were applied to all the studied samples for particle disaggregation. Mean grain size and sorting coefficient were calculated according to Folk and Ward (1957) using the GRADISTAT software (Blott and Pye, 2001).