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Fine-grained laminated Quaternary sediments in the Ebro Valley (Spain): characteristics and formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2018

M. T. Garcia-Gonzalez
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geoquímica y Mineralogía. Centro de Ciencias Medioambientales, CSIC Serrano, 115 dup. 28006 Madrid, Spain
J. Wierzchos
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geoquímica y Mineralogía. Centro de Ciencias Medioambientales, CSIC Serrano, 115 dup. 28006 Madrid, Spain
C. Vizcayno
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geoquímica y Mineralogía. Centro de Ciencias Medioambientales, CSIC Serrano, 115 dup. 28006 Madrid, Spain
R. Rodriguez
Affiliation:
Departamento de Meteorología y Ciencia del Suelo, ETSIA, Alcalde Rovira Roure, 144, Lleida, Spain

Abstract

Fine-grained sediments are a major parent material in Ebro Valley soils. During the 1960s, the area was transformed by irrigation and soils underwent serious degradation processes. The sediments have a fine texture, high CaCO3 contents and high salinity-sodicity levels, and contain illite as the most important phyllosilicate in the fine fractions. Two groups of finely laminated organization have been recognized in terms of layer thickness and grain-size distribution. Based on texture, the microstructure of the silty and clayey layers is different, irrespective of their mode of formation; porosity characteristics also differ between layers, leading exclusively to a capillary evaporation flow that results in salinization of the plough horizons. The sediments are formed by two different mechanisms, each layer resulting from uninterrupted sedimentation of a suspension or from deposition of suspended particles by water discharge.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1996

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