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Raman counting: a new method to determine provenance of silt

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Abstract

This article proposes a new integrated methodology to determine the mineralogical composition of silt-sized sediments, reaching the same precision level required to perform quantitative provenance analysis as traditionally done on sand-sized sediments. We examine technical problems encountered in analysis of silt and illustrate how they can be solved for suspended load in a modern fluviodeltaic environment. All methods described here, and specifically the user-friendly Raman spectroscopy, can be routinely applied in mineralogical studies of ancient siltstones. Provenance information can thus be extracted from mudrocks, which represent a very conspicuous part of the stratigraphical record and are prone to preserve original detrital assemblages from diagenetic dissolution better than permeable interlayered sandstones. Quantitative mineralogical analysis of silt-sized sediments by innovative techniques opens up new frontiers in sedimentary petrology. Such an effective approach is of crucial importance to make accurate provenance diagnoses and sediment budgets and to correctly unravel the innumerable pieces of geological information stored in sedimentary archives from the alluvial plain to the deep-sea.

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Acknowledgments

The manuscript benefited from constructive criticism by two anonymous reviewers. Christian France-Lanord, Valier Galy, Maarten Lupker and Hermann Kudrass kindly provided the analysed sediment samples from the Ganga–Brahmaputra fluvial, estuarine, and shelfal system. Help and advice by Alberto Paleari, Danilo Bersani, Laura Borromeo, Monica Dapiaggi, Massimo Setti, and Luigi Marinoni are greatly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio di Petrografia del Sedimentario, Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche e Geotecnologie, Università di Milano-Bicocca, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Sergio Andò & Eduardo Garzanti

  2. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la dinamica dei processi ambientali, via Mario Bianco 9, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Pietro Vignola

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  1. Sergio Andò
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  2. Pietro Vignola
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  3. Eduardo Garzanti
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Correspondence to Eduardo Garzanti.

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“The freshly laid silt that bordered the water glistened in the sun like dunes of chocolate. From time to time, bubbles of air rose from the depths and burst through to the top, leaving rings on the burnished surface. The sounds they made seemed almost to form articulate patterns, as if to suggest they were giving voice to the depths of the earth itself.” Amitav Gosh, The hungry tide, p. 21.

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Andò, S., Vignola, P. & Garzanti, E. Raman counting: a new method to determine provenance of silt. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 22, 327–347 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-011-0142-4

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