Jour: Indian Association of Sedimentologists, Vol 18, No. | (1998), pp. 83-94 MUD CONTENT, CLAY MINERALS AND OXIDATION STATE ON IRON IN TERIS OF SOUTHERN TAMIL NADU: IMPLICATIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF REDNESS SABU JOSEPH, K. P. THRIVIKRAMAII and S. ANIRUDHAN Department of Geology, University of Kerala, Kariavattom-695584 Abstract ‘The mud-tich and red stained, inland and coastal teri deposits of southern Tamil Nadu, have colours ranging from yellowish red and dark red-brown to dark red, Mud content and isochrome values positively corelate with the Fe content. XRD and IR data indicate the presence of hematite, kaolinite and illite in the clay fraction, Both lays are autochthonous in origin and are not co-eval. Introduction For more than a century, colour of the red beds have attracted much attention of sedimentologists and geochemists (Krynine, 1949; Van Houten, 1961). Earlier studies on various insitu red beds have revealed that the source of iron to be easily weatherable Fe- ‘bearing silicates such as pyroxene, amphibole, biotite, garnet (almandine) and oxides of iron (ilmenite, magnetite). Nature of pigment (ferric iron) of red bed is important as it furnishes information on the nature and stability of phases of iron and relative ages of red beds (Not 1969). Ina review of red beds, Pye (1983) recapitulates several hypothesis on the origin o redness and concluded that although different forms of ferric iron occur in sediments, all of them do not attribute to the red colour. The redness is not only due to cutan on framework grains, but also on interstitial inatrix and organic matter content. Hematite or its poorly crystalline precursor has been elected to be the chief pigment (Walker, 1967; Norris, 1969). According to Van Houten (1964), the predominance of illite, chlorite and mixed-layer clays in most red beds and kaolinite only in a few, isa reflection of variations in the source rock, climate, drainage conditions and diagenetic history. Teris (area 500 sq km approx) comprising partly indurated deposits of red sand, moulded into subareal dunes and inter-dune sand sheets occur at Panakkudi, Vadakkankulam and Sattankulam in Kattabomman district and Kudiramoli, Sayarpuram, Kulathur and Surangudi in Chidambaranar district of southern Tamil Nadu (Fig. 1). Earlier workers (Foote, 1883; ‘Menon, 1950) postulated detrital origin for teris. Gardner (1981) supported an insitu origin for the hematite pigment and sourced it primarily on garnet. Rajagopal and Krishnan (1991) regarded the release of iron oxide by decomposition of minerals like gamet, magnetite and amphibole as the cause of redness. Thrivikramaji and Anirudhan (1993) using the criterion84 Sabu Joseph, K. P. Thrivikramaji and S. Anirudhar, Fig. 1. Distribution of Teris in Southern Tamil Nadu (modified after Gardner, 1981). 1-Vadakkankulam, 2-Panakkudi, 3-Sattankulam, 4-Kudiramoli, 5-Sayarpuram, 6-Pudukkottai, 7-Kulathur and 8-Surangudi of spatial distribution, grouped the teris (Table 1) into Inland Teri Deposits (ITDs) and Coastal Teri Deposits (CTDs). Similar deposits to teris have also been reported from parts of coastal Andhra Pradesh (Rao, 1978). ‘TABLE 1: FIELD AND MEGASCOPIC DATA ON TERI DEPOSITS Tipe cation ‘Area (sq km) ‘Deseription 17D Panakkudi 2 Limited in No. and extent, located near (land Teri ‘Vadakicankulam "1 foothills of Western Ghats; Deposit) ‘Noticed as sand sheets; mildly indurated sandstone with silt and clay, dominated by ‘medium to coarse grained sand; thin gravel layers at variable depths cro Ssttanilam 265 Rather discontinuous vast accumulations as (ConstlTei——_-Kudiramol «0 lunes and sheets, roughly paalel to and~6-8 Deposit) Sayarpuram 7 1m away from the modern shoreline, ter resis Kolathar 7 on erysallne basement younger calcareous Sura 33 sandstoneflmestong, thickness ranges from T= 12 km, primary structures not seen, sands are dominantly medium to fine According to the classification given by Trevartha (1954), the teri tract and environs of Kattabomman and Chidambaranar district of southern Tamil Nadu, fall under the zone of semiarid climate, The present paper deals with the origin of redness of teris, its nature, distribution and source/s of the pigment vis-a-vis the mud content. The oxidation state of iron, composition and origin of clays and its implications on the past climatic changes are also studied.‘Mud Content, Clay Minerals and Oxidation in Teris 85 Methodology The 100 surface samples (about Ikg per node in a square grid of ~3 km side) form the data source. Munsell Soil Colour chart is used to determine the Hue (red, yellowish red, brown). Estimates of mud content (Carver, 1971) are shown over the isomud maps. Organic matter ‘was removed by hydrogen peroxide for XRD analysis. ‘The samples were scanned using Philips PW 1710 diffractometer with Cu-Ka. radiation at an adopted scanning speed of 1° per min. IR spectra of samples in the range 400-4000 ccm! prepared in KBr pallets were obtained using Perkin-Elmer S80B sp: trometer. Hematite shows characteristic absorption bands at 317, 352, 425, 450, 463, 480, 532 and 562 cm* Clay is identified by the OH stretching doublet at 3700 and 3620 cm", supported by the-OH_ deformation bands at ~1000, 938, 916, 472, cm" and weak bands at 700, 758, 795 citr!. The broad band near 3625 coupled with the 825 and 750 cm" doublet is diagnostic of illite. Peak height method (Scafe and Kunze, 1971) is used (based on XRD) to assess the relative abundance of clays. Extractable or free-iron (= total iron less combined iron) of 2 sediment samples were estimated by standard wet chemical analysis (Vogel, 1961; Walker, 1974). Total iron was determined using volumetric procedure (redox titration) with potassium dichromate solution as primary standard. The Al was determined using complexometric titration (back titration) method complexing with standard EDTA solution (Vogel, 1961). Na ‘and K were determined using Flame photometer. The red pigment was extracted by oxalic acid extraction solution method (Leith, 1950). Results and Discussion ‘Mud Content ITDs show a wide range of mud content (10-50 percent), whereas CTDs exhibit a relatively harrow spread, .c., 1-29 percent, Mud content as well as isochrome values (Munsell Colour) of sediment samples (Table 2) show positive correlation with Fe" (Fig. 2b, d). However, Fe* of free iron does not show significant correlation with the mud content and colour (Fig. 2a, ©). This draws support from the correlation matrix (Table 3), which shows highest correlation of 0.588 between isochrome value and Fe”, followed by 0.3838 between mud content and Fe’* of free iron content, which to a very large extent is controlled by the percentage of mud in the sediment. Isomud maps of Sattankulam and Kudiramoli teris (CTDs) show a definite shoreward trend (Fig. 3). In the former, the high mud value of 24 percent noticed in the northern part of the teri decreases to 6 percent at the near-central part of the deposit and thereafter it increases upto 12 percent shoreward. However, a southerly (i.e., shoreward) decrease of ‘mad content, from 15 to 3 percent, is registered in the Kudiramoli teri. Red Colour Pattern Teri samples exhibit shades of red. Hue falls between red (10R) and yellowish red (SYR), value and chrome spans between 3-6 and 4-8 respectively. The colour varies from yellowish red (SYR 4.5/6) and dark reddish brown (2.5YR 3/4) to dark red (10R 3/6). The Panakkudi teri (ITD) has a decreasing colour trend from Rajapudur in the north to Panakkudi in the south.