The Principal Component Analysis was applied to three sets of data, generated from the results of grain size analysis of 153 surface sediment samples of Ilha Grande Bay, Rio de Janeiro. State. The results show the advantages of the method in the interpretation of the different textural facies of the sediments of the area, in comparison to the classification methods of Shepard (1954) and Folk & Ward (1957). The results show also that the grain size frequencies are the best set of data for the application of the analysis.
Sediment distribution; Granulometry; Multivariate analysis; Principal component analysis; Ocean floor; Continental shelf; Ilha Grande Bay; Brazil