Sediments off the eastern United States vary markedly in
texture - the size, shape, and arrangement of their grains.
However, for descriptive purposes, it is typically most
useful to classify these sediments according to their
grain-size distributions. Starting in 1962, the U.S.
Geological Survey and the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution began a joint program to study the marine
geology of the continental margin off the Atlantic coast of
the United States. As part of this program and numerous
subsequent projects, thousands of sediment samples were
collected and analyzed for particle size.