Quartz is an ubiquitous component of marine sediments. Textural
characteristics of this component reflect the dynamics of its transport
and at the same time are indicative of its source.
Quartz may be extracted from marine sediments by means of a
sodium pyrosulfate fusion and hydrofluosilicic acid dissolution without
significantly modifying its size distribution. The size distribution of
the chemically purified quartz is determined by means of a Cahn
sedimentation balance which provides a continuous analog record.
These records are digitized and computer processed to obtain size
frequency distributions that subsequently are resolved for their modal
components by means of an analog computer.
Three rather different sets of samples were studied to evaluate
the application of this methodology to questions of the origin and dispersion
of quartz in deep-sea sediments. Textural analysis of
chemically purified quartz reveals the following general features:
1. All the samples are polymodal in the 2 to 64 micron size
range.
2. The modal character of quartz in river sediment persists in
the marine environment and can serve as a provenance indicator.
3. Dispersal processes that act on a fine-grained sediment may
change the relative proportions of the constituent quartz modes, but
do not significantly alter the position of these modes. The way in
which the relative proportion of the assorted modes vary within a
depositional area may serve as a tool for mapping energy fields at
the sea floor. / Graduation date: 1972
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/28391 |
| Date | 02 March 1972 |
| Creators | Dauphin, J. P. (Joseph Paul) |
| Contributors | Heath, G. Ross |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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