A study on mineral contents, sedimentological characteristics, and chemical contents of Kerteh estuarine river and lagoon sediments

Abstract

A study on the mineral contents, sedimentological characteristics and chemical contents in the sediments of Kerteh Estuarine river and lagoon conducted. The sediments were collected using Ekman Grab from 8 stations and put in a labeled plastic bags and brought back to the laboratory for analysis. The minerals were determine using Quantitative Mineral Estimation Method and Scanning Electron Microscope., sedimentological characteristics were analyzed using Particle Size Analyzer(PSA) and the chemical contents were determine using X-ray Fluorescence machine. Results show that the minerals present was quartz, ilmenite, magnetite, spine), hematite, zircon, rutile, tourmaline, pyrite, hydroilmenite, olivine, blue-anatase, leucoxene and topaz. Results on sedimentological characteristics show that the mean size value has an average of 6.62375cp, sorting 1.89125cp, skewness 0.03 l 25cp, and kurtosis 2.59cp. For the chemical contents show that the elements present is 0(42%), Si (26%), Mg (3%), Al (9%), K (3%), Ti (0%- trace), V (Vanadium), Fe (9%), Ba (1%), Pb (4%), Cl (2%), Ca (2%), Cu (1%), Ce (0%- trace), Cr (0%- trace), La (0%- trace), Pr (0%- trace), and Th (0%- trace). The high percentage of Si and O might be due to the existence of mineral quartz and oxides. In term of sedimentological characteristics the lowest mean of particle size is located in station 5 which is located at the area where the ocean meets the river and the highest mean was at the middle of lagoon area. The highest sorting value is located at station 8 which is located at the innermost part of lagoon area and the lowest is at station 4 which is located at the river area. In term of the texture class for the study area was silty clay loam. The study area has at least 30% of clay.