“BASIC” entropy grouping of laser-derived grain-size data: An example from the Great Barrier Reef

Rapid acquisition and management of high quality grain-size data was facilitated by establishing a Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) link between a laser particle sizer (Malvern Mastersizer X) and a spreadsheet program (EXCEL for WINDOWS). The resultant data set was grouped, using “ENTROPY”, an entropy analysis program, to delimit grain-size facies for samples collected from a section of the Great Barrier Reef shelf. ENTROPY accepts ASCII data and can be used to group frequency data from a range of applications.