Abstract
Active stream sediments generally consist of broken-down fragments of pre-existing rocks by the action of river (stream) flow. This makes them target materials for routine geochemical surveys and provenance analysis. Fifteen (15) stream sediment samples were collected in some parts of Bula and its environs, northeastern Nigeria, in order to determine their textural characteristics, heavy mineral and elemental composition. The sediments were subjected to granulometric, heavy mineral and elemental analyses. The result of granulometric analysis show that the streamsediments are poorly to moderately well sorted, very platykurtic to leptokurtic, fine to medium grained and positively skewed. Zircon, rutile and tourmaline are the dominant heavy mineral species occurring in the sediments. The computed Zircon-Tourmaline-Rutile (ZTR) index values for the samples range from 59.18 - 83.53, indicating mineralogical maturity. The geochemical data of the stream sediment samples show that the mean contents of the trace elements [Ti (0.73 ± 0.74%), Fe (0.39±0.19%), Cr (816±639ppm), Ni (258±108ppm), Pb (48±12.37ppm) and Zn (502±126ppm)] were higher than their respective average crustal values except for Fe. Computed threshold values indicate possible mineralization containing Fe and Ti. The elements have variable spatial distribution. The study shows that the trace elements composition of the stream sediments is majorly lithogenic. Because mineralization in rocks and sediments are often characterized by considerable variation in their trace elements contents, the metal concentrations in these sediments are large enough for Ilmenite and Rutile mineralization to be suspected within the study area.
Highlights
Nigeria is endowed with many base metal mineralization that altogether form the metallogenic provinces of the country (Elueze and Olade, 1985)
The different statistical parameters derived from the graph plots of cumulative weight percentage against phi (φ) of the different locations are presented on Table 2
Non-opaque heavy mineral assemblage of the stream sediment samples are dominated by zircon, rutile and tourmaline
Summary
Nigeria is endowed with many base metal mineralization that altogether form the metallogenic provinces of the country (Elueze and Olade, 1985). Active stream sediments represent the fine to medium–grain solid (clayey-silty-sandy) material, which consists of fragments that are mostly derived from the erosion of weathered rocks and soil by stream or river water. Depending on their particle size and stream water velocity, sediments are transported in solution, in suspension or as bed load. Stream sediments represent the best composite of materials from the catchment area of the stream drainage network (Ranasinghe et al, 2009) and are commonly used as an exploration tool for regional geochemical surveys (Cohen et al, 1999; Cannon et al, 2004) as well as for provenance studies (Mange and Wright, 2007; Okon and Essien 2015).
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