Origin of aeolian sediments based on geochemical traces By sedimentary fingerprinting method

Abstract The destructive effects of wind erosion on the environment and human activities have led to the identification and quantification of sources of wind sediments as an important issue for planners. Due to the importance of the subject, in this study, the origin of wind sediments in Jalali sands has been investigated. To achieve this, after mapping the geomorphological facies of the study area using field visits and Google Earth images in ArcMap software, 43 samples of area sediments were collected in different geomorphological facies. Then, using geochemical and XRF experiments, the volume of elements in each sediment sample was determined. Normalization and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed in SPSS software. After determining the geochemical tracers using the Solver plugin in Excel software, the sediment fingerprinting equation was applied to the tracer elements in the study area in order to determine the relative contribution of geomorphological facies in the formation of wind sediments. According to the results, the largest share of sediment sources was related to the lemon clay facies, so that 60% of the sediments were related to this facies, which cover 2.2% of the area. After lemon clay facies, the largest share was related to puffy facies. Puffy facies with 36.8% of the area, 36% of the sediment sources. According to the mentioned, areas with dense vegetation had the lowest share in the production of aeolian sediments and lemon clay facies that had no vegetation and had fine-grained elements, had the highest share of sediment production, so Necessary measures need to be taken to stabilize these domains.