HR: 1340h
AN: OS23A-1532    [Abstracts]
TI: Calibration of Optical Back Scatterance for Suspended Sediment Concentration With San Francisco Bay Sediment
AU: * Keller, B
EM: kyrrab.cal@verizon.net
AF: KELLER Hydrogeophysicist, 741 Dolores Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93109
AB: Optical back scatterance (OBS) is used by USGS to indirectly quantify suspended sediment concentration in the waters of San Francisco Bay. The use of one of the types of OBS instruments that is used in the Bay was evaluated for quantification of discharge water from sand yards, where dredged bay floor sand is brought on land for commercial purposes. The instrument response was calibrated with synthetic samples prepared from settled, previously suspended fine sediment, collected on various dates and derived from the same general area of central San Francisco Bay. The sediment samples were washed with fresh water, oven dried, sieved, and mixed into water in a test chamber. The responses of various sediment samples were compared with that of silica flour, a commercially available industrial material with similar particle size and density, that is white in color. Multiple tests with sediment samples from individual dates yielded extremely repeatable, almost linear instrument responses as a function of varying concentration. Sediment samples from different dates yielded varying responses, ranging from 2.0 to 2.8 times the response of silica flour. This response difference, a factor of approximately 1.4, is interpreted to be due to small differences in the darkness ("color") of the sediment samples. In a comparison with an EPA test method that uses filtration and weighing, performed at commercial laboratories, the "total suspended solids" (TSS, used synonymously with the term "suspended sediment concentration") analyses of the mixed synthetic sample waters yielded very poor results. Saline water samples were often associated with TSS test results that were higher than the known synthetic sample concentrations, indicating that the lab tests were often measuring dissolved salt rather than suspended sediment.
DE: 4558 Sediment transport (1862)
DE: 4594 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005