TY  - JOUR
A1  - Chemam, Asma
A1  - Hadjzobir, Soraya
A1  - Daif, Menana
A1  - Altenberger, Uwe
A1  - Günter, Christina
T1  - Provenance analyses of the heavy-mineral beach sands of the Annaba coast, northeast Algeria, and their consequences for the evaluation of fossil placer deposit
JF  - Journal of earth system science
N2  - The paper presents the first study of heavy-mineral sand beaches from the Mediterranean coast of Annaba/Algeria. The studied beaches run along the basement outcrops of the Edough massif, which are mainly composed by micaschists, tourmaline-rich quartzo-feldspathic veins, gneisses, skarns and marbles. Sand samples were taken from three localities (Ain Achir, Plage-Militaire and El Nasr). The heavy-mineral fraction comprises between 74 and 91 vol%. The garnets of the beaches are almandine rich and tourmalines vary with respect to their location from schorl to dravite. Tourmaline at Ain Achir and the Plage-Militaire is schorlits, while at El Nasr beach dravite is ubiquitous. The World Shale Average normalised REE of the sands and the basement outcrops reveal: (i) Ain Achir beach: REE pattern of sand and the coastal rocks from the studied beaches reflects a multiple sources; (ii) Plage-Militaire: the sand and the coastal outcrops show similar LREE and a strong enrichment in HREE, suggesting the presence HREE-rich phases found as inclusions in staurolite; (iii) El Nasr: two types of sand patterns are found: one with flat REE pattern similar to the proximal rocks and other one enriched in HREE suggesting a mixed source.
KW  - Provenance
KW  - heavy minerals
KW  - beach sediments
KW  - fossil placer
KW  - geochemistry
KW  - Annaba
KW  - Algeria
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-018-1019-z
SN  - 0253-4126
SN  - 0973-774X
VL  - 127
IS  - 8
PB  - Indian Academy of Science
CY  - Bangalore
ER  -