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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

GCAGS Transactions

Abstract


Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions
Vol. 37 (1987), Pages 443-446

The Effects of Fluvial Abrasion on the Shapes of Quartz Sand Grains

Mark Peterson (1), Jim Mazzullo (1)

ABSTRACT

The application of quartz grain shape analysis to the study of sediment sources in the northern Gulf of Mexico is partly based upon the assumption that the transport of the grains over long distances by low-gradient streams does not abrade and thereby obscure their source-inherited shapes. In order to test this assumption, the shapes of medium and fine quartz sand grains in 36 bedload samples from a 500-km (310-mi) stretch of the Mississippi River were measured with the Previous HitFourierNext Hit technique and examined with the scanning electron microscope. The Previous HitFourierTop technique shows that there are no significant changes in the shapes of the grains in a downstream direction (except when the sediment load of the Mississippi River is diluted with the sediment load of its tributaries), and the SEM reveals no noticeable abrasion of the source-inherited features (crystal facets and fracture faces) on the grains.


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