Calcrete profiles in Puthukulam quarry section, Sathankulam region, Southern Tamilnadu, India: implications on palaeocli
- PDF / 3,243,045 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 83 Downloads / 177 Views
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Calcrete profiles in Puthukulam quarry section, Sathankulam region, Southern Tamilnadu, India: implications on palaeoclimate significance Perumal Velmayil1 · Udayanapillai Alagaiah Venu2 Received: 31 May 2020 / Revised: 18 September 2020 / Accepted: 19 September 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Calcrete is an impure limestone which is used as a substitute raw material resources for high-grade primary limestones like shell limestone, meta-sedimentary crystalline limestone in cement industries. They occur as a boundless deposit within the regolith profile sections rest over the basement rocks of granite quarry at Puthukulam Village, near Sathankulam region, Tuticorin District of Tamil Nadu, India. Geology of the area and schematic calcrete profiles stratigraphy are given. Field observation reveals that calcrete occurs as massive, laminated, oolitic, hardpan and lumpy forms in the study area. Micromorphological characters of calcrete of the area are revealing the displacive and replacive texture. And also the micritic and microsparitic calcite deposition is associated with regolith material. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals the general mineralogy and clay mineralogy of the calcrete. The major element geochemistry of calcrete through X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analysis (XRF) indicates that CaO, MgO, S iO2, Al2O3 and F e2O3 are in a higher elevated concentration above 1% than other oxides, such as MnO, MgO, Na2O, K2O, TiO2 and P2O5. To evaluate the palaeoclimate significance, results of the proxies of mineralogy, clay mineralogy and major element geochemistry of calcrete are used. Keywords Regolith · Micrite · Micromorphology · Clay mineralogy · Major element geochemistry
1 Introduction Regolith deposit is composed of soil, weathered rock fragments and calcrete. The formation of calcrete within the regolith represents a semi-arid and arid climate (Hema et al., 2010; Udayanapillai et al., 2014). Calcrete is formed either by evapotranspiration of groundwater or by paedogenic leaching of meteoric or surface water under arid and semi-arid climate conditions (Hill et al., 1999). Alkaline-rich groundwater, evapotranspiration and evaporation in the regolith, rainfall, temperature and mode of formation are the important criteria for the calcrete formation (Solomons et al., 1978). Calcrete occurs as regolith deposit rest over both sedimentary and metamorphic or igneous basement rocks. Numerous researchers have focused their attention on Communicated by M. V. Alves Martins * Perumal Velmayil [email protected] 1
Department of Geology, Alagappa University, Karaikudi 630003, India
Department of Geology, V.O.C College, Affiliated To M.S. University, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi 628008, India
2
the research of calcretes, not only in India, but also in various parts of the world (Tanton and Andrews, 2001; Prudencio et al. 2011; Armstrong-Altrin et al., 2003; Rosario Jimenez and Juan Jimenez, 2003; Horea Bedlean, 2004; Hema and Navin, 2004; Tetsuya Waragai, 2005; McQueen
Data Loading...
