Provenance controls on volcaniclastic beach sand: example from the Aeolian archipelago, Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

Abstract Sand and sandstone composition of volcanic origin may be clues to the provenance of the sediments and sedimentary rocks. Volcaniclastic provenance studies contribute significantly to unravelling the generation and provenance of sediment under investigation, which in the Aeolian archipelago comprises preserved units of outcrops dominated by lava flows intercalated with airfall tephras as source rocks. The focus of this paper is the study of the petrographical composition and textures of beach sands, which can then be used as a guide in the interpretation of provenance and origin of beach sand(stone)s rich in volcanic debris transported into deeper water. The composition of Aeolian beach deposits defines a single immature petrofacies with a large amount of unweathered glass and mafic minerals. Panarea island is dominated by dacites and new grain categories have been proposed to differentiate this provenance. Surface processes such as mechanical erosion (mass wasting and surface runoff) produce an overestimation of mafic components compared to the felsic components in the beach sand fraction.