Element Geochemistry And Its Implication For Sediment Provenance Of Amphibole And Quartz In The Estuarine Sediments Of The Changjiang River And The Huanghe River

The Changjiang River and the Huanghe River as the main provenance of the seaseabed sediment for the east China, the two rivers have been transporting a lot ofterrigenous detrital material, which carry much information of the source rock formation,watershed environment, climate conditions, sedimentary environment and process etc.The provenance research of the sediment from the Changjiang River and the HuangheRiver is important to study the origination of the East China sea system, and alsoprovide the qualitative and quantitative basis to know the environment change, marineflux, coastal zone and land interaction. At present, the research method is more focusedon the mineralogy and the geochemistry. The method of combining the advantages ofthe mineral element geochemistry is less. Based on mineral element geochemistrymethods this paper aims to find the new indicator to distinguish the provenance ofChangjiang River and the Huanghe River.The new indicator bears significantimplications in researching the source material of sediment transport and migrationmechanism from the Changjiang River and the Huanghe River, the sea sedimenttransport routes, knowing the east China sea sediment source and evolution process.This paper made a analysis of the Changjiang River and the Huanghe River estuarysediments of amphibole, quartz element geochemistry.Using the methods of themineralogy characteristics analysis, the major elements, trace elements, rare earthelements etc, aimed to find out the method and new indicators to distinguish betweenthe Changjiang River and the Huanghe River sediment. The results showed:(1)In the study of the Changjiang estuary and the Huanghe River estuary sedimentmineral characteristics, the content of the amphibole minerals in the Changjiang Riversediment heavy mineral and metal plant-based is comparatively high, the content of themica group mineral and limonite in the Huanghe River is high, while the mica groupmineral content in the old Huanghe River is less, the distinguish standard of theChangjiang River and the Huanghe River sediments mainly depends on the content ofthe mica group mineral, amphibole mineral and metal mineral group,apatite and sphenein heavy mineral can’t be used to distinguish between the Changjiang River and theHuanghe River’s sediment well. The Huanghe River is higher than the Changjiang River with Feldspar/quartz in light mineral, due to the weathering intensity is higher inthe Changjiang River. Quartz weathering resistance is stronger than feldspar, the quartzin light minerals content is higher in the Changjiang River. Calcite can be used as thecharacteristics mineral of the Huanghe River’s sediment.(2) Amphibole element geochemical study shows that the Changjiang River’samphibole’s distribution is complex, crustal type, Crust-mantle type and mantle type hasthe distribution, and its distribution is equalient to the complex basin environment ofsource rock; the Huanghe River amphibole genetic types are concentrated, mainly withthe crust-mantle mixed type, this is consisitent to the characteristics of loess which is itssource. The Huanghe River amphibole amount of rare earth elements is higher than theChangjiang River, The curve is consistent with the Huanghe River and the old HuangheRiver. trace elements and rare earth elements in amphibole can better distinguishbetween the Changjiang River and the Huanghe River source, the use of amphiboletrace element for cluster analysis and Be-Ta diagram, can be used to distinguishbetween the Changjiang River and the Huanghe River sediments better, Be-Ta-Sctriangle as the inspection of distinction between the Changjiang and the Huanghe Riversediments.(3) Amphibole tests of trace elements and rare earth elements has certain systemerror, the Huanghe River and the old Huanghe River within the error range can show thesource consistency better, trace elements and rare earth elements can study as a sourceof important indicators. The standard deviation chart of amphibole trace elements, withthe standard deviation for the floating element content value, preliminary build theindicators between the Changjiang River and the Huanghe River sediment.(4) Element geochemical study found that quartz trace elements of Be-Ta-Ge andBe-Ta-Sc diagram can distinguish between The Changjiang River and the HuangheRiver source better, the content of the quartz rare earth elements in the ChangjiangRiver amount is higher than the Huanghe River, the differences of the quartz heavy rareearth elements between the Changjiang River and the Huanghe River is higher than thelight rare earth elements’s.