Catalog of heavy minerals used in provenance analysis in the geological cartography of Ecuador from 2018 to 2022
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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9271-4323
Leyla Lisbeth Oñate-Acurio
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4870-1976
María Elena Véliz-Zambrano
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8863-685X
Marilyn Del Cisne Castillo-Jara
Abstract
INTRODUCTION. The qualification and quantification of heavy minerals allow us to analyze the history of the transport of detritus available for sedimentation, in addition to understanding characteristics of sediment transport and the direction of detritus dispersion, geomorphological changes, tectonic evolution, and paleo-discrimination, the environmental and geological history of the relief we inhabit. OBJETIVE. This research presents criteria to discriminate and correlate lithostratigraphic units in regional geological cartography based on the analysis of heavy minerals. METHOD. The separation of heavy minerals includes the preparation of stratigraphic columns in the field, sample processing in the laboratory, and the analysis of heavy mineral indices. RESULTS. From 2018 to 2022, 339 assemblies of 51 lithostratigraphic units reported on geological maps in Ecuador were analyzed. The most common heavy minerals found are zircon, tourmaline, rutile, monazite, anaste, titanite, apatite, diopside, enstantite, hypersthene, augite, actinolite, hornblende, kyanite, andalusite, sillimanite, garnet. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The use of heavy mineral indices in the provenance analysis allows us to determine with more excellent reliability the origin of the detritus that forms the rocks and to discriminate lithostratigraphic units.
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