Sedimentology and geochemistry of cauvery river sediments of Tamilnadu South India implications for studies on provenance paleoweathering and total carbon

Abstract

newline This research focuses on the sedimentological and geochemical characterisation of Cauvery River sediments of Tamilnadu, an easterly flowing river of the Peninsular India. The objectives of this research is accounting the sediment properties and chemistry to dechipher the river water flow energy conditions during monsoon (South-West monsoon and North- East monsoon); provenance of the sediments, paleo-weathering conditions newlineand estimation of total carbon budget. These objectives are achieved by investigating sediment granulometry, grain surface micro-textures, oxides, trace elements and REE of sediment mixture, fine grained sediments and heavy minerals and, the total carbon budget sequestrated in the sediments. The granulometry of South-West (SW), North-East (NE), and post-monsoon sediments results indicate that: the SW monsoon (July-2013, August-2014, and June-2016) sediments are derived under high water flow energy during Aug-2014 followed by the July-2013 and Jun-2016. The NE monsoon newline(October-2013, December-2014, October-2015, and October-2016) sediments indicate the energy scale as Oct-15gtDec-14gtOct-13gtOct-16. The spatial distribution of average sand fractions is 85.18%, 36.53%, 86.38%, 75.99% during March-2013, Febuary-2014, March-2015, and January-2016 respectively. The sediment sand population indicate that the Cauvery River water flow energy was higher during March-2015. The grain surface micro-textural features on the detrital quartz and newlinegarnet minerals are the results of water flow energy conditions and chemical newlinecomposition. The observed mechanical, chemical and morphological microtextural newlinefeatures reveals that the mechanical and chemical features are less in newlinethe SW monsoon quartz grains compared to the NE monsoon quartz grain. newline