Mineralogy of Al-Hasa Desert Soils (Saudi Arabia)

Abstract

X-ray mineralogical examination of the 2 20/~m fraction of oriented samples from a highly calcereous swamp soil and neighbouring Mio-Pliocene strata in AI-Hasa showed a wide range in mineralogy: attapulgite, illite, montmorillonite, chlorite and kaolinite, in decreasing order. Powder X-ray diffraction revealed an abundance of attapulgite, calcite, quartz and in a few samples, traces of dolomite, Fe-oxides, feldspars and gypsum.The soils are believed to have been formed by deposition of highly calcareous wind-borne silt particles in an already formed swamp. The surface and subsurface horizons are underlain by an organic residue layer, 30-50 cm thick, containing 14-36~ organic matter. The whole profile sits on hard, impervious, sedimentary layers that mineralogically resemble some strata of the outcrop.Attapulgite and illite are the most abundant and common clay minerals in the soils and strata, but are most pronounced in the latter. Attapulgite not only occurs in A1-Hasa, but is widely distributed in the Arabian Peninsula; from east of the Mediterranean through the deserts of Syria and Iraq down to eastern Saudi Arabia, where it occurs only in association with limestone parent material. In this area of extreme aridity (A1-Hasa), the origin of the minerals and their relative abundance is believed to be associated with the source of sediment since minimum alteration seems to have taken place after deposition.

Clay and Silt Mineralogy of Some Soils From Qasim, Saudi Arabia

“…(a) Inheritance Although inheritance has been considered to account for the palygorskite content of the A1 Hasa soils by both Jenkins (1976) and Aba-Husayn and Sayegh (1977), it is difficult to support such a hypothesis for the Torrifluvents described here. Certainly, the Permo-Triassic rocks in the vicinity of profiles 1-3, and possibly similar rocks now denuded that may have contributed to profiles 4 and 5 , contain palygorskite, as revealed by electron microscopy (Plate Id) and diffraction, but the amount is small compared with that in the profile samples.…”

“…l), where intensive agricultural development is in progress with international cooperation. Both papers record the universal presence in the clay fractions of palygorskite together with variable amounts of smectite, kaolinite, chlorite and mica; the fact that Aba-Husayn and Sayegh (1977) report higher contents of mica than does Jenkins (1976) may well reflect the provenance of the samples. Both studies conclude that the soils derive directly from the underlying or neighbouring rocks and that there is little evidence of pedogenic clay formation.…”

“…VERY little is so far known about the mineralogy of Saudi Arabian soils, the only papers dealing with the subject that have been traced (Jenkins, 1976;Aba-Husayn and Sayegh, 1977) relate to the soils of the Al-Hasa oasis (ca 100 km south of Dammam - Fig. l), where intensive agricultural development is in progress with international cooperation.…”

Remote sensing of mineral dust aerosol using AERI during the UAE2: A modeling and sensitivity study

“…Studies of airborne dust properties in other nearby regions [ Singer et al , 2004] also show quartz and kaolinite to be dominate mineral species in collected dust samples. Illite is also evaluated on the basis of work performed by Aba‐Husayn and Sayegh [1977]. Last, to consider particles with a heterogeneous composition, we investigated dust mixtures consisting of hematite (10%) and calcium carbonate (50%) internally mixed with kaolinite and quartz.…”

Occurrence of palygorskite in Tertiary sediments of western Egypt

“…The presence of palygorskite in soils and sediments of the Middle East countries has been widely reported: in Syria (Muir, 1951), Israel (Yaaton, 1955;Barshad et al, 1956;Ravikovitch et al, 1960;Singer, 1971;Singer & Amiel, 1974;Yaalon & Wieder, 1976), Iraq (A1-Rawi et al, 1967;Eswaran & Barzanji, 1974), Lebanon (Lamouroux et al, 1973), Jordan (Wiersma, 1970;Shadfan, 1983;Shadfan & Dixon, 1984;Shadfan et al, 1985) and Saudi Arabia (Aba Husayn & Sayegh, 1977;Elprince et al, 1979;Mashhady et al, 1980;Viani et al, 1983;Lee et al, 1983;Mackenzie et al, 1984;Shadfan & Mashhady, 1985). In Egypt, Elgabaly (1962) indicated the predominance of palygorskite in some of the soils in the western desert and proposed that the mineral had formed from calcareous argillaceous material in a saline lagoon.…”