Geochemistry of dark coastal heavy-mineral beaches sand (Annaba, Northeast Algeria)

Chemam, Asma; Hadj Zobir, Soraya; Daif, Menana; Altenberger, Uwe; Günter, Christina

Synthèse
Volume 23, Numéro 2, Pages 154-165
2017-10-31

Geochemistry Of Dark Coastal Heavy-mineral Beaches Sand (annaba, Northeast Algeria)

Authors : Chemam Asma . Hadj Zobir Soraya . Daif Menana . Altenberger Uwe . Günter Christina .

Abstract

The study area (Ain Achir and Plage-Militaire beaches) is a part of the Edough Massif/Annaba /Algeria. Recent beach sediments of Ain Achir are characterized by light sand and dark reddish one. This latter appears mostly after a sea storm. The Plage-Militaire sands are permanently dark brown. The study sands are formed near to garnet-, staurolite- and/or andalusite-, kyanite- micaschists, marble, epidotic skarns, migmatites and numerous tourmaline bearing quartzo-feldspathic veins.Whole sand samples from the two beaches have been analyzed in major and trace elements, including rare earth elements (REE). At Ain Achir beach, the light sand and the dark one show significant differences in their chemical compositions. Some of the major elements, the trace elements as well as the Rare Earth Elements in the light sand are lower than in the dark sand samples. Whereas the chemical composition of the dark sand of the two beaches are nearly similar. This study shows a strong positive correlation between the concentration of major, traces and REE elements and the amount of heavy and especially metamorphic minerals like garnet, staurolite, tourmaline and epidote.