Mineralogy of Kuala Ibai river estuarine sediments during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the mineral content and the textural classes of the sediments of Kuala lbai River estuarine. The sediments were collected from ten stations which covered an area of 3 km2 by using Van Veen Grab. The sediments were analyzed by using the following methods; (i) Dry Sieving and Hydrometer Me/hod. for textural class analysis, (ii) X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD), for silt and clay fractions. (iii) Quantitative Mineral Estimation (QME), for heavy mineral analysis, and (iv) Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), to determine the minerals elements and oxides. The results of XRD analysis showed that the sediment of Kuala Ibai River estuary is highly dominated by quartz which has the percentage more than 65%. Besides, other primary clay minerals that occurred in low percentage are kaolinite, illite, monlmorillonile. calcite. chlorite, goethite, mica and feldspar. The result for QME analysis also showed that the quartz is the dominant mineral in the study area and it was found in stations I. 2 and 3, while other heavy minerals which occurred in trace amounts are andalusile. hydroillmenite, ilmenite, iron oxide, leucoxene, magnetite, pyroxene. mica. lourmaline and zircon. The texture analysis showed that the dominant texture class is clay. which found especially in stations 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, while sand texture class was only found at the river mouth of the estuary (Stations 1, 2, 3 and 4).