Spatial Distribution of some of the Common Minerals in Saad River Project, Maysan Province, Iraq

Abstract

The aim of study was to diagnose and study the minerals that present in some of the soils of the Saad River project. The study included choosing a pilot area and taking three movement paths (Transect) in a vertical direction across the Saad River. Each of them passes through the largest number of soil units with the largest area and the most frequent. Nine sites of soil were selected as peduncles for each of the selected paths, with three soil peduncles for each strip path (the first was the shoulder of the river, the second was the river basin, and the third was the depressions). Soil peduncles were described in a fundamental morphological description according to the Soil Science Division Staff Manual (2017). Soil samples were also obtained from each horizon of the peduncles for the purpose of performing some required laboratory analysis. The results of the mineral analysis indicated that the light sand minerals are common, as their percentage ranged 95.80%-98.80%. The predominance was in the carbonate rock fragments in the first place, followed by the quartz minerals in all horizons of the study pedons. Quartz, both monocrystalline and polycrystalline quartz were found. Monocrystalline quartz was dominant in all study pedons, due to its resistance to weathering due to the nature of its chemical bonds, hardness, and lack of cracks, as well as its light weight. For the heavy sand minerals, their percentage was 1.20%-4.20% of the total sand minerals. The opaque minerals prevailed in all the horizons of the soil pedons of the study. The vertical distribution of the opaque minerals in the horizons of the soil pedons showed a heterogeneous distribution. The difference in their percentages may be due to the effect of sedimentation processes, which is a reflection of the state of variation in the physiographic sites and its impact on the mineral content of the sediments and the lack of activity of weathering processes.