Bulk density calibration for X-ray tomographic analyses of marine sediments

A calibration procedure is presented for generating bulk density profiles o f intact marine sediment cores using X-ray computed tomography (CT). Develo ped using both artificial and natural marine sediment samples, the correlat ion is strong with an R-2 value of 0.98. Similar experiments with carbonate sediments were also strongly linear, but offset from the terrigenous curve , illustrating the influence of sediment chemistry on scanner response. Com parison between newly computed densities for both sediment types with those from individually calibrated cores during our previous CT studies reveals good correspondence between the data sets.