Investigating the Mineral Composition of Peat by Combining FTIR-ATR and Multivariate Analysis

Abstract

The mineral content of peat has received little attention until the last few decades, when peat cores have been increasingly used to study past dust deposition. Paleodust deposition is commonly reconstructed through elemental datasets, which are used to infer deposition rates, storminess patterns, mineral composition, source identification, and fertilization effects. To date, only a few studies have directly analyzed the mineralogy (by XRD and SEM) and particle size of peat mineral matter, and the conducted studies have usually been constrained by the need to remove a large amount of organic matter, which risks altering the mineral component. One alternative is to use quick, nondestructive techniques, such as FTIR-ATR, that require little sample preparation. In this study, we analyzed by FTIR-ATR both the bulk peat and ash fractions of a sequence taken in a minerogenic mire that covered a wide inorganic matter content range (6%–57%). Aided by principal component analysis on transposed IR spectral data, we were able to identify the main minerals in bulk peat and ash, quartz, mica (likely muscovite), K feldspar (likely microcline), and plagioclase (likely anorthite), which are consistent with the local geology of the mire catchment. Changes in mineral composition during the last ca. 2800 years were coeval with previously reconstructed environmental changes using the same core. Our results suggest that FTIR-ATR has great potential to investigate peat mineral matter and the processes that drive its compositional change.