Detrital

Mineral Matter in Goal. The mineral matter (7,38) in coal results from several separate processes. Some comes from the material inherent in all living matter some from the detrital minerals deposited during the time of peat formation and a third type from secondary minerals that crystallized from water which has percolated through the coal seams. 

Primary porosity—porosily formed at the time the sediment was deposited. Sedimentary rocks that typically exhibit primary porosity are the clastic (also called fragmental or detrital) rocks, which are composed of erosional fragments from older beds. These particles are classified by grain size. 

Detrital or epiclastic <30 >50 Denudation products of continental rocks... 

Hay, W. W. (1998). Detrital sediment fluxes from continents to oceans. Chem. Geol. 145,287-323. 

MacKenzie and Garrels equilibrium models. Most marine clays appear to be detrital and derived from the continents by river or atmospheric transport. Authigenic phases (formed in place) are found in marine sediments (e.g. Michalopoulos and Aller, 1995), however, they are nowhere near abundant enough to satisfy the requirements of the river balance. For example, Kastner (1974) calculated that less than 1% of the Na and 2% of the K transported by rivers is taken up by authigenic feldspars. 

The detrital rain of carbon-containing particles can be divided into two groups the hard parts comprising calcite and aragonite and the soft tissue containing organic carbon. The composition of the soft tissue shows surprising... 

Fig. 11-12 Detrital carbon dynamics for the 0-20 cm layer of chernozem grassland soil. Carbon pools (kg C/ m ) and annual transfers (kg C/m per year) are indicated. Total profile content down to 20 cm is 10.4 kg C/m. (Reproduced with permission from W. H. Schlesinger (1977). Carbon balance in terrestrial detritus, Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 8,51-81, Annual Reviews, Inc.)...

The two prime mechanisms of carbon transport within the ocean are downward biogenic detrital rain from the photic zone to the deeper oceans and advection by ocean currents of dissolved carbon species. The detrital rain creates inhomogeneities of nutrients illustrated by the characteristic alkalinity profiles (Fig. 11-9). The amount of carbon leaving the photic zone as sinking particles should not be interpreted as the net primary production of the surface oceans since most of the organic carbon is recycled... 

Nearly all of the detrital particles sinking into the deep ocean decompose and release the associated P. A small percentage (approximately 8%), however, do survive and accumulate on the sea floor. This P is then buried in the sediments (F i) and represents the ultimate removal of P from the ocean. 

Periphyton are microscopic and macroscopic algae that attach to and grow on solid surfaces, such as lake bottoms, rooted aquatic vegetation, and submerged woody debris. Periphyton form part of the base of littoral food webs in lakes. Periphyton communities are taxonomically diverse and the attached communities contain other organisms, such as bacteria and zooplankton, as well as detrital material. Periphyton vary seasonally and annually in both abundance and species composition. 

As an example, imagine a carbonate-rich sediment that contains a small but significant fraction of detrital silicate. The sediment might be a lake sediment, a surface coral, a deep-sea coral, a carbonate-rich bank sediment, or a speleothem (see for example, Richards and Dorale 2003). The carbonate has a very high U/ Th ratio (on the order of 10" by atom) and the detrital material has a lower %/ Th ratio of about 10°. The carbonate and detrital materials each have specific values that differ from each... 

Initial °Th and Pa are generally considered to be associated with a detrital component that becomes cemented, or occluded, within the speleothem. This component may be composed of clays, alumino-silicates or Fe-oxyhydroxides (Fig. 3) with strongly adsorbed and Pa. Th and Pa incorporated in speleothems and similar deposits may also have been transported in colloidal phases (Short et al. 1998 Dearlove et al. 1991), attached to organic molecules (Langmuir and Herman 1980 Gaffney et al. 1992) or as carbonate complexes in solution (Dervin and Faucherre 1973a, b Joao et al. 1987). 

Figure 5. An example of the use of concentrations to assess changes in sediment mass accumulation taken from McManus et al. (1998). The upper panel shows the measured °Thxs, calculated from measured °Th concentrations by correction for detrital °Th, and for the effects of age using 5 0 stratigraphy (see Appendix). Because the supply of °Th to the sediment is a constant, low °Th represent times of rapid sediment mass accumulation. The calculated mass flux is shown in the lower panel. Dramatic increases in mass flux are observed during all but one of the Heinrich events, shown by the gray bands.

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