Several sedimentologists have demonstrated that certain combinations of textural parameters (e.g., mean diameter vs. skewness; mean diameter vs. standard deviation) are environmentally sensitive and effective in differentiating between modern beach, river, and dune sands. However, the reliability of textural parameters as criteria for identifying analogous ancient sandstone bodies has never been documented clearly.

Recently, data which the writers presented show that linear discriminant analysis, a mathematical technique which uses a classifying function to assign an individual sample to one of two or more populations, can be used successfully to differentiate between various modern sand bodies. Results of applying discriminant analysis to whole ^phgr grain-size analyses have demonstrated that the technique is more effective in differentiating between modern beach, coastal dune, inland dune, and river sands than textural parameters calculated from quarter ^phgr data.

This study shows that discriminant analysis is also a reliable and effective technique for determining the depositional environment of ancient sandstone bodies.

End_of_Article - Last_Page 733------------