The Yulee heavy mineral sand deposits of northeastern Florida

Abstract

Occurrence in a series of low, north-south trending ridges of quartz sand that form part of a Pamlico barrier island of Pleistocene age. The heavy minerals were concentrated in favorable environments in a downdrift direction from a point where the ancestral St. Marys River entered the Atlantic Ocean. Principal component analyses indicate that two processes were dominant in the formation of the deposits. One of these affected the coarser sand fractions and the other affected the finer materials. The heavy minerals are associated with the factor dominated by the finer sediments. No separate event or mechanism responsible for the concentration of heavy minerals; heavy minerals were concentrated by selective sorting through the normal reworking of sediments by current and wave activity.--Modified journal abstract.