At each beach, a sediment sample was taken from the high tide line as well as from the berm or the upper part of the beach that receives wave action during storms and high surf (except Halawa sites, 2 high tide samples were collected due to lack of a berm). Each sample consisted of sand scooped with a small shovel from a 61 × 61 cm2 quadrat to a depth of approximately 5.5 cm, to fill a 20 l bucket. These residues were sieved through a set of nested sieves: 4.75, 2.8, and 1 mm. Only particles 1–15 mm in size were retained from each sieve tray and placed in separate labeled plastic bags