Trace elements in quartz shed light on sediment provenance

Quartz is one of the most common minerals on the surface of the earth, and is a primary rock-forming mineral across the rock cycle. These two factors make quartz an obvious target for sediment provenance studies. Observations from experimental and natural samples demonstrate that the trace element content of quartz often reflects the conditions of quartz formation. When quartz is weathered from its primary crystallization setting (i.e., quartz from a granitoid) it can retain many chemical signatures of formation throughout the sedimentation processes. These geochemical signatures can be used to understand the primary source of individual quartz grains within a sediment. Here we present a case study from the Bega River catchment to demonstrate that quartz grains in sediments at the mouth of the Bega River are sourced from granitoids within the drainage basin. Data presented here also indicate that a portion of the beach sediment is also derived from either (i) sedimentary rocks within the basin or; (ii) mixing with sediments at the mouth of the river. The Bega River catchment was selected for this study because it is both small and has a well-constrained bedrock lithology, making it an ideal location to test the utility of this provenance technique. However, quartz trace element provenance has broad applications to modern and ancient sediments and can be used in lieu of, or in conjunction with, other provenance techniques to elucidate sediment transport through time.