Small-Scale Features of Marine Sediments and Their Importance to the Study of Deposit Feeding

AbstractMinerals are the building blocks of clastic sediments and play an important role with respect to the physico-chemical properties of the sediment and the lithostratigraphy of sediments. This paper aims to provide an overview of the mineralogy (including solid organic matter) of sediments as well as suspended matter as found in the Netherlands (and some parts of Belgium). The work is based on a review of the scientific literature published over more than 100 years. Cenozoic sediments are addressed together with suspended matter and recent sediments of the surface water systems because they form a geoscientific continuum from material subject to transport via recently settled to aged material. Most attention is paid to heavy minerals, clay minerals, feldspars, Ca carbonates, reactive Fe minerals (oxides, siderite, sulphides, glauconite) and solid organic matter because they represent the dominant minerals and their properties form a main issue in subsurface and water management. When possible and relevant, the amounts, provenance, relationship with grain size distribution, early diagenesis and palaeohydrological evolution are described. Tables with statistical data about the mineral contents and isotopic composition of carbonates and organic matter are presented as overviews. The review on the mineralogy of Dutch fluvial and marine environments is more extensive than that for the other sedimentary environments because the first two have been studied much more intensively than the others and they also form the larger part of the Dutch deposits. The focus is on the natural background mineralogy of Dutch sediments, but this is hard for recent sediments, largely because the massive hydraulic infrastructure present in the Netherlands has probably also affected the mineralogy and geochemistry of sediments deposited in recent centuries. Many findings are summarised, several of which lead to more general insights for the Dutch situation. Ca carbonates in sediments often have several provenances and thus must be considered as mixtures. Dolomite is commonly present in addition to calcite. The importance of biotite as weatherable mica is unclear. Weathering of heavy minerals plays some role but it is unclear in which way it affects the heavy mineral associations. Clays are usually dominated by illite, smectite and their interstratified variant, while kaolinite is usually below 20% and chlorite below 5%. Vermiculite is a minor constituent in fluvial clays and its illitisation presumably happens during early diagenesis in the marine environment. Opaque Fe hydroxides can be present in addition to Fe oxyhydroxide coatings and both will play a role in redox chemistry as reactive Fe minerals. Feldspars in marine sediments must be present but they have not been properly studied. The genesis of rattle stones and carbonate concretions has not been completely elucidated. The fraction of terrigeneous organic matter in estuarine and coastal marine sediments is substantial. The available data and information are spread irregularly over the country and the reviewed information discussed in this paper is derived from relatively small-scale studies dealing with a limited amount of analysed samples. Much information is available from the Scheldt estuaries in the southwestern part of the Netherlands partly due to the severe contamination of the Western Scheldt in recent decades.

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Small-scale burial of macroalgal detritus in marine sediments: Effects of Ulva spp. on the spatial distribution of macrofauna assemblages

Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology ◽

10.1016/j.jembe.2005.11.003 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 332 (1) ◽

pp. 84-95 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Francesca Rossi

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Marine Sediments ◽

Small Scale

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Ecology of Deposit-Feeding Animals in Marine Sediments

The Quarterly Review of Biology ◽

10.1086/415511 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 62 (3) ◽

pp. 235-260 ◽

Cited By ~ 354

Author(s):

Glenn R. Lopez ◽

Jeffrey S. Levinton

Keyword(s):

Marine Sediments ◽

Deposit Feeding

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A small-scale, portable method for extracting microplastics from marine sediments

Environmental Pollution ◽

10.1016/j.envpol.2017.07.017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 230 ◽

pp. 829-837 ◽

Cited By ~ 106

Author(s):

Rachel L. Coppock ◽

Matthew Cole ◽

Penelope K. Lindeque ◽

Ana M. Queirós ◽

Tamara S. Galloway

Keyword(s):

Marine Sediments ◽

Small Scale

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Observation of the Main Natural Parameters Influencing the Formation of Gas Hydrates

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14071803 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (7) ◽

pp. 1803

Author(s):

Alberto Maria Gambelli ◽

Umberta Tinivella ◽

Rita Giovannetti ◽

Beatrice Castellani ◽

Michela Giustiniani ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Chemical Composition ◽

Marine Sediments ◽

Inductively Coupled Plasma ◽

Hydrate Formation ◽

Silica Sand ◽

Small Scale ◽

Natural Sand ◽

Inductively Coupled ◽

Pure Silica ◽

Plasma Mass Spectrometry

Chemical composition in seawater of marine sediments, as well as the physical properties and chemical composition of soils, influence the phase behavior of natural gas hydrate by disturbing the hydrogen bond network in the water-rich phase before hydrate formation. In this article, some marine sediments samples, collected in National Antarctic Museum in Trieste, were analyzed and properties such as pH, conductivity, salinity, and concentration of main elements of water present in the sediments are reported. The results, obtained by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and ion chromatography (IC) analysis, show that the more abundant cation is sodium and, present in smaller quantities, but not negligible, are calcium, potassium, and magnesium, while the more abundant anion is chloride and sulfate is also appreciable. These results were successively used to determine the thermodynamic parameters and the effect on salinity of water on hydrates’ formation. Then, hydrate formation was experimentally tested using a small-scale apparatus, in the presence of two different porous media: a pure silica sand and a silica-based natural sand, coming from the Mediterranean seafloor. The results proved how the presence of further compounds, rather than silicon, as well as the heterogeneous grainsize and porosity, made this sand a weak thermodynamic and a strong kinetic inhibitor for the hydrate formation process.

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