the 1.2-mm sand were available. The samples were wetted with synthetic
sea water in order to replicate field conditions. The synthetic sea water
was used as the wetting medium in subsequent operations. To ensure
all grains were fully wetted and that no air bubbles remained in the
sample, the sand and water were gently stirred several times over a
nominal immersion time of one hour.
Since one aspect of the study was to determine the range of variability
that would occur under field conditions, we varied the amount of shaking
for water removal between samples at each weight. The weights of the
three wet samples of a given dry weight were averaged to obtain final
values for use in correlations. An electronic balance was used which has
a range of zero to 1,200 g and an error of _+0.01 g. All samples were
discarded after weighing; no samples were reused.