The Techniques of Sedimentary Mineralogy ebook is available to be downloaded here now.
- Title: The Techniques of Sedimentary Mineralogy
- Author: F.G. Tickell
- Publisher: Elsevier Science
- Pages: 231
This book is concerned with the procedures that serve to describe or evaluate the various kinds of sedimentary material for those interested or engaged in a technical field requiring such information. It may be regarded as a handbook rather than a treatise on the subjects covered. The exposition of the methods of optical mineralogy, however, is complete enough to permit one who is not acquainted with the techniques to gain facility with the method for the identification of minerals in fragments.
Some other techniques, such as the X-ray powder method for the identification of minerals and other crystallized substances, are discussed in considerable detail. The description of minerals includes practically all that have been found in sediments, and the identification tables and crystal drawings include one hundred minerals.
For the crystal drawings the author wishes gratefully to acknowledge his debt to the late Dr. W. E. Troger, Professor of Mineralogy and Sedimentary Petrology at the University of Freiberg, for his kind permission to reproduce many of the crystal drawings from his book, Optische Bestimmung der gesteinsbildenden Minerale (1959). Grateful acknowledgment is also made to Dr. C. Osborne Hutton, Professor of Mineralogy at Stanford University, for his kind help and advice on the sections dealing with mineralogy.
Some sedimentary rocks are referred to as fragmental in that they consist of fragments of minerals or of previously existing rocks. The specific name of such a rock usually suggests the origin. Tuff, for example, is of igneous and volcanic origin, and it is composed of fragments of mineral matter that may be sedimented from the air onto land or water. Diatomite is sedimentary and of organic origin, being composed of the siliceous frustules of diatoms.
The commonest kinds of fragmental rocks are the aqueous sediments, such as sand, silt, and clay, the individual particles of which have been derived, perhaps from a specific source or, more likely, from various sources. As examples, there are aeolian deposits such as loess, which is fragmental and wind-transported. There are also glacially deposited fragmental rocks, such as till and varved clay. Fault-breccias, too, are composed of fragments made by crustal disturbances.