LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

Stratigraphic discriminatory potential of heavy mineral analysis for the Neogene sediments of Belgium

Photo from wikipedia

1. Introduction The Neogene sediments at the southern edge of the North Sea Basin are mostly glauconite-rich sand deposits. The different formations can be recognized based on differing amounts of… Click to show full abstract

1. Introduction The Neogene sediments at the southern edge of the North Sea Basin are mostly glauconite-rich sand deposits. The different formations can be recognized based on differing amounts of glauconite, different grain size characteristics and/or varying clay content and clay mineralogy. As these parameters also vary considerably within the formations and gradually across formation boundaries, an exact definition of the different units at a certain location is not always straightforward. Heavy minerals may provide an additional argument for the stratigraphic definition of certain units. Heavy mineral composition is commonly used in the Dutch Pliocene and Quaternary stratigraphy for the correlation of units, certainly in units lacking biostratigraphical evidence (e.g. Westerhoff, 2009). It must be noted, though, that the heavy mineral composition should preferably be used in combination with other sediment characteristics in a stratigraphic study. Heavy mineral composition is primarily related to sediment provenance, which may be the same for different units or may vary at different locations for the same unit (Morton & Hallsworth, 1994; 1999; Mange & Wright, 2007). As such, these variations in sediment provenance recognized based on heavy mineral composition may correlate well with formation boundaries in certain cases yet they mainly serve to confirm or disprove correlations made based on other proxies. A large amount of heavy mineral data of the Neogene units of Belgi

Keywords: heavy mineral; stratigraphic discriminatory; mineral composition; neogene sediments

Journal Title: Geologica Belgica
Year Published: 2020

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.