John Day Reservoir sediment sample locations and analyses - 2002

Video imagery of the floor of the John Day Reservoir was collected using a system developed by the USGS in Cook, WA. This system was patterned after the SeaBOSS system in Woods Hole, MA. They system used a Van Veen grab sampler, and had a video camera mounted on the frame.

The VHS tapes from this cruise were displayed on a flat-screen monitor and photographs were taken of theonitor using a Nikon Coolpix-5000 digital camera. It was attempted to take the picture near the time when the sediment sample was actually acquired, but this was not always possible. The only navigation available for these data were the actual sample points, so the imagery is located near, but not exactly where the navigational fixes are.

These digital photographs were imported to Corel PHOTO-PAINT version 11 where the images were cropped, converted to black and white images, and enhanced to improve image contrast.

This information was gleaned from an email message in 2003 from Laura Landerman (at the time working for the U.S. Geological Survey office in Cook, Washington) to VeeAnn Cross. This information was incorporated into the metadata on 12/6/2017 by VeeAnn. The original metadata did not address the analyses of the sediment samples at all.
The samples collected in the John Day Reservoir were incredibly varied. Video of the bottom showed many areas consisted of gravel (granules to large boulders) covered with varying thicknesses of finer sediments ranging in size from silt to sand. The samples collected sometimes included cobble from the bottom. Sample sizes were not large enough to actually quantify the distribution of the larger material; therefore, only the sand or finer material which was collected in each sample (if any) was analyzed for its grain size distribution. In some instances some of the slightly larger material was noted in more detail, otherwise the grain size analysis focuses on material approximately 2mm (-1 phi) or smaller.
Samples were prepared according to standard USGS Coastal and Marine Geology procedures (USGS CMG), modified from Folk (1968) and Carver (1971; chapter 4). Samples were wet sieved at 2mm (-1 phi) and 1mm (0 phi) and weights were recorded. If the 1mm - 2mm fraction was greater than 0.00g the samples were again wet sieved at 63 micons (4 phi) and the sand fraction (63 microns to 2 mm) were run through settling tubes and the fine fraction (smaller than 63 microns) were analyzed with the Coulter LS Particle Size Analyzer (Coulter, 1994). Otherwise, the 1mm and finer sample was analyzed using the Coulter LS Particle Size Analyzer Coulter). The USGS CMG settling tubes are modified after Thiede et al., (1976), and similar to that described by Syvitski, (1991; chapters 1 and 4). The Coulter uses laser diffraction theory to analyze particle sizes up to 1mm.
Statistical analyses of the results were obtained using a USGS-developed computer program. The program calculates graphical statistics, median, mean, skewness, and kurtosis, using methods presented by Folk and Ward, Inman (Carver,1971; chapter 6), and Trask (1930), and the moment measures (Carver, 1971; chapter 6).
References: Carver, R.E., 1971, Procedures in Sedimentary Petrology, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 653pp. Coulter Corporation, 1994, Coulter Product Manual, May, 1994, Coulter Corp., Miani, FL.
Folk, R. L., 1968, Petrology of Sedimentary Rocks: Austin, University of Texas Publication, 170 p. Syvitski, J.P.M., 1991, Principles, Methods, and Application of Particle Size Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 368 pp. Thiede, J., T. Chriss, M. Clausson, and S. A. Swift, 1976, Settling Tubes for Size Analysis of Fine and Coarse Fractions of Oceanic Sediments, School of Oceanography, Oregon State University, Report#76-8, 87 pp.
Trask, P. D., 1930, Mechanical analysis of sediments by centrifuge, Economic Geology and the Bulletin of the Society of Economic Geologists, 25, no. 6, pp. 581-599.
sdsz A Program for Sediment Size Analysis by Graig McHendrie documentation by Carol Madison and Graig McHendrie U.S. Geological Survey Menlo Park, CA July 12, 1989 Version 3.3 34p.

Edits to the metadata were made to fix any errors that MP v 2.9.36 flagged. This is necessary to enable the metadata to be successfully harvested for various data catalogs. In some cases, this meant adding text "Information unavailable" or "Information unavailable from original metadata" for those required fields that were left blank. Other minor edits were probably performed (title, publisher, publication place, etc.). Added the link to the data catalog page in the Identification section, and a link to the publication in the Larger Work Citation. Added online link to the data in the Distribution section. Added a link to the field activity. The information in the quantitative horizontal accuracy assessment was moved to the horizontal positional accuracy report. A process step was added to account for the sediment sample analysis. The metadata date (but not the metadata creator) was edited to reflect the date of these changes. The metadata available from a harvester may supersede metadata bundled within a download file. Compare the metadata dates to determine which metadata file is most recent.

Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword.