| Sieves
There is much debate about whether sand should be sieved
to remove unwanted materials such as gravel, shells, rabbit
droppings, small bugs and the like, or left untouched and in
original condition. Personally, I collect sand and similar
materials such as clay and silt as well, and anything
in the samples that is larger than 2.00 mm isn't technically
speaking sand, so all my
samples get sieved before storage.
There are various types of sieve available from
scientific quality Endecott test sieves which cost an arm
and a leg, to the cheaper sieves used by Bonsai and cacti
growers for preparing their soil. The latter only cost between £15.00 and £20.00 for a
set of three, in mesh sizes of around 2 mm, 4 mm and 7 mm.
The sieve I use is the 2 mm from the set. It's not strictly
accurate but near enough to keep my samples broadly within what is
officially recognised as sand. You can also purchase a set of nesting sieves used for
soil particle analysis but I've yet to find a suitable
supplier. They are also more expensive, costing around £100.00
the set. The sieve I use can be separated into the mesh base and
the sides. With a diameter of 300 mm the mesh is easily
carried in my sand collecting bag and is sometimes used on
location to remove unwanted particles larger than 2 mm.
Flour sieves and tea-strainers are useful and readily
available and inexpensive. One point about sieves, is that
they are often of limited use in the field, at least here in
Scotland, as the sand is usually wet and difficult to sieve. |
