Microtextures of quartz grain surface from recent sedimentary environments along al-Khowkhah-al-Mokha coastal area, Southern Red Sea, Yemen

Abstract EN

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses of quartz grains from Recent sedimentary environments such as beach, coastal duns,sabkha and wadi deposits in the Al-Khowkhah and Al-Mukha coastal area along southern Red Sea, Yemen, revealed variations in surface textures.

Results of this study reveals the existence of distinguished surface features that reflect the effect of mechanical and chemical actions on the quartz grains.

Quartz grains of beach, coastal dune and wadi deposits show significant abundance of both mechanical and chemical surface features developed during transportation of the grains in the subaqueous and aeolian environments, respectively.

In contrast,quartz grains of sabkha are characterized by the dominance of chemical surface features.

Among these chemical surface features, those originated from silica dissolution are considerably more numerous than those due to silica precipitation.

Relative proportions of various surface features recorded on quartz grains from different environments indicate a considerable overlapping among the identified surface features in the examined quartz grains of coastal sediments and wadi deposits.