LAUSR

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