Appendix B - Sediment Sample Quality Control Analysis

As a quality control check, replicate samples were processed separately for approximately 10% of all beach samples processed. Twenty-five duplicate back beach samples were processed for Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Counties. In addition, thirty-six duplicate beach samples were previously processed for Nassau, Duval, St. Johns, Flagler, and Volusia Counties. The following is a list of Duplicate Samples that were processed and compared to their original samples.

Due to the fact that two different sieve sets were used in the initial grain size analysis, cross analysis was also necessary. Ten duplicate samples, or approximately 4%, were processed in both sieves sets as well as a third. The following is a list of those Duplicate Samples that were processed in all three sieve sets and compared to each other.

Samples from Indian River, St. Lucie, Broward, and Dade were processed in Sieve Set #2. All other samples were processed using Sieve Set #1. Sieve Set #1 and #3 were the same sieve sets used in a study by Balsille and Dabous (2003) where it was found that there was little difference in the analyses.

There does appear, however, to be a variation between sieves of the same manufacturer as well as different manufacturers. Please note that the intent of this Appendix is not to analyze these variations but to simply state these variations for the end user.  Please see Table B1 for a complete list of sieves used in each set and their manufacturers.