--> ABSTRACT: Clay-Mineral Segregation by Differential Flocculation: Jourdan River-St. Louis Bay Estuary, Hancock County, Mississippi, by Gregory McCrae and Jesse O. Snowden; #91036 (2010)

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Clay-Mineral Segregation by Differential Flocculation: Jourdan River-St. Louis Bay Estuary, Hancock County, Mississippi

Gregory McCrae, Jesse O. Snowden

Within the Jourdan River-St. Louis Bay estuarine system, the dominant depositional mechanism of suspended clays is preferential flocculation of kaolinite with increasing salinity. Flocculation and deposition of kaolinite occur mainly within the confines of the Jourdan River, hence the effects of differential gravity settling of mineral species are unlikely. Statistical analyses show that water turbidity and salinity are linearly related to distance from the mouth of the Jourdan River and to each other up to the point where kaolinite is largely removed from the suspended sediments by flocculation. X-ray diffraction data show that maximum flocculation of suspended kaolinite has occurred where the kaolinite/illite ratio (K/I) reaches its minimum. Bottom-sediment mineralogy f llows the trend of the suspended sediments with K/I of the bottom sediments increasing as K/I of the suspended sediments decreases.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91036©1988 GCAGS and SEPM Gulf Coast Section Meeting; New Orleans, Louisiana, 19-21 October 1988.