Sediment-Water Interaction at Higher Altitudes: Example from the Geochemistry of Wular Lake Sediments, Kashmir Valley, Northern India

Abstract

The textural and geochemical studies of Wular Lake sediments from Jammu and Kashmir, northern India have documented several attention-grabbing processes that operate during weathering, transportation, and deposition. Investigations have revealed that physical weathering dominates over chemical weathering, resulting in enhanced rates of erosion and consequent deposition of huge amounts of detritus into the lake. The lake sediments and source rock chemistry are comparable, indicating low to moderate weathering history of the source region, which is consistent with cold regions and steep slope areas. Unusual enrichment of Cr in the sediments compared to source rocks signifies a process of sediment-water interaction where Cr is removed from water and preferentially adsorbed onto the clay fraction of sediments.