Statistical interpretation of the relation between geochemical and mineralogical data obtained from lake and floodplain sediments (Amuq Valley / Turkey)

Date

2022-10-20

Author

Aykasım, Devin

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Amuq Valley region, that includes Amuq Lake and floodplains of Orontes, Afrin, and Karasu River, and itssurroundings have always been a focus of interest for scientists as they provide a unique data collection thatpreserves both geological and archaeological records of environmental and social turbulences experiencedduring the Holocene epoch. In the Amuq Valley region, mineralogical and elemental geochemical investigationswere carried out along 149 samples from undisturbed sediment cores that were taken from the Amuq Lakeand from the vicinity of the archaeological sites of Tell Kurdu, Tell Atchana, and Tell Tayinat. Mineralogicalcontent of the sediments along these cores were examined by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and SEM-EDS.Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectrometry / Mass Spectrometry (ICP-OES/MS) analyseswere conducted on the samples to detect quantitative concentrations of major, minor and trace elements.A method was developed by MapInfo software to convert intensities of bulk powder and oriented airdriedclay fraction X-ray diffractogram peaks to numerical values. Numerical values obtained from XRDand ICP-OES/MS analyses were correlated by Correlation Matrix and Principal Component Analysis. Hence,mineral-element relationships were statistically identified. The main purpose of this study is to revealstatistical correlations between geochemical and mineralogical data obtained and characterized from thelake and floodplain sediments of Amuq Valley and uncovering the relationship between geochemistry andmineralogy of the lake and floodplain samples by providing some statistical evidences.Statistical evaluation of the data revealed that quartz, serpentine, feldspar group minerals and clay mineralshave higher correlation coefficients in t he floodplain samples wh ile ca lcite an d ar agonite ha ve highercorrelation coefficients in the lake samples. A significant effect of environmental difference was determinedon aragonite correlations. It was also examined that the clay mineral peaks before 20° 2θ on bulk powder Xraydiffractograms have stronger correlations with quartz, serpentine, and feldspar group minerals in contrastto the other clay mineral peaks. Moreover, element vs. mineral correlations revealed possible presence ofimpurities like rutile in quartz due to high correlation coefficients of Si, Al, Fe, Mn, Cu, Ti, Hf, Zr, and Nb,while other minerals generally correlate with their chemical constituents except clay minerals which alsocorrelate with trace elements including rare earth elements such as Hf, ,Y La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Tb, Dy,Th, Ga, Er, Yb, Lu, Zr, and Nb. These results also showed that application of this statistical analysistechnique is an efficient and timesaving approach on large data sets.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/107604

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Department of Geological Engineering, Conference / Seminar