Geochemistry of Sub-Depositional Environments in Estuarine Sediments: Development of an Approach to Predict Palaeo-Environments from Holocene Cores

Muhammed, Dahiru D ORCID: 0000-0001-5025-5456, Simon, Naboth, Utley, James EP ORCID: 0000-0003-0397-5607, Verhagen, Iris TE, Duller, Robert A ORCID: 0000-0002-4738-1141, Griffiths, Joshua, Wooldridge, Luke J and Worden, Richard H ORCID: 0000-0002-4686-9428 (2022) Geochemistry of Sub-Depositional Environments in Estuarine Sediments: Development of an Approach to Predict Palaeo-Environments from Holocene Cores. GEOSCIENCES, 12 (1). p. 23.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12010023

Abstract

<jats:p>In the quest to use modern analogues to understand clay mineral distribution patterns to better predict clay mineral occurrence in ancient and deeply buried sandstones, it has been necessary to define palaeo sub-environments from cores through modern sediment successions. Holocene cores from Ravenglass in the NW of England, United Kingdom, contained metre-thick successions of massive sand that could not be unequivocally interpreted in terms of palaeo sub-environments using conventional descriptive logging facies analysis. We have therefore explored the use of geochemical data from portable X-ray fluorescence analyses, from whole-sediment samples, to develop a tool to uniquely define the palaeo sub-environment based on geochemical data. This work was carried out through mapping and defining sub-depositional environments in the Ravenglass Estuary and collecting 497 surface samples for analysis. Using R statistical software, we produced a classification tree based on surface geochemical data from Ravenglass that can take compositional data for any sediment sample from the core or the surface and define the sub-depositional environment. The classification tree allowed us to geochemically define ten out of eleven of the sub-depositional environments from the Ravenglass Estuary surface sediments. We applied the classification tree to a core drilled through the Holocene succession at Ravenglass, which allowed us to identify the dominant paleo sub-depositional environments. A texturally featureless (massive) metre-thick succession, that had defied interpretation based on core description, was successfully related to a palaeo sub-depositional environment using the geochemical classification approach. Calibrated geochemical classification models may prove to be widely applicable to the interpretation of sub-depositional environments from other marginal marine environments and even from ancient and deeply buried estuarine sandstones.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	estuary, estuarine sediment classification, geochemical elements, depositional environment, prediction, Holocene, machine learning
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2022 16:54
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2024 01:14
DOI:	10.3390/geosciences12010023
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3147570