Weathering assessment of quartz grains: a semiquantitative approach.

Details the development of a technique to assess the relative weathering state of quartz grains as revealed by SEM. The method uses only one size fraction of grains to eliminate size dependent surface texture variability. Operator bias is removed by coding specimens. A semiquantitative approach is used: five grain surface features indicative of 'weathering' and five indicative of 'freshness' are observed on each grain. This systematic approach is an improvement over qualitative assessments and allows for statistical analysis of the data. -from Author