- Sand is between 1/16 millimeter and 2 mm.
- Silt is between 1/16 and 1/256 mm.
- Clay is smaller than 1/256 mm.
First the rock is disaggregated, usually using acid to dissolve the cement holding the grains together (although DMSO and ultrasound are also used). The sand is sifted out using a standard seive. The mud fraction (silt plus clay) usually must be determined by their settling speed in water. At home, a simple test is to put it all in a jar with water and a little detergent, shake it well, and set the jar down where you can watch it. Sand settles in a minute, silt in less than an hour and clay after a day or two. At that point you can measure with a millimeter ruler to estimate the proportions of the three fractions.
Once the percentages of sand, silt and clay are determined, using the diagram is straightforward:
- Draw a line on the ternary diagram to mark the value for sand, zero at the bottom and 100 at the top. Measure along one of the sides, then draw a horizontal line at that point.
- Do the same for silt. That will be a line parallel to the left side.
- The point where the lines for sand and silt meet is your rock. Read its name from the field in the diagram. (Naturally, the number for clay will also be there.)
- Notice that the lines that fan downward from the sand vertex are based on values, expressed as percentage, of the expression clay/(silt + clay), meaning that each point on the line, regardless of the gravel content, has the same proportions of silt to clay. You can calculate your rock's position that way too.
This graph is related to the previous graph for gravel/sand/mud: the center line of this graph, going from sandstone through muddy sandstone to sandy mudstone to mudstone, is the same as the bottom line of the gravel/sand/mud graph. Imagine taking that bottom line and fanning it out into this triangle to split the mud fraction into silt and clay.