Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Project Advisor 1

Emily McLaughlin

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Analysis of ice-rafted debris (IRD) and other dropstones in sedimentary rock is almost exclusively done using destructive techniques such as grain-size analysis, which requires the rock sample to be dissolved in acid or peroxide to reveal the original sediments locked within the carbonate. Techniques such as this not only destroy samples which are often in limited supply, but also are time consuming and reveal the presence of IRD in only small sections of sample cores at a time. The aim of this project is to discover a geochemical proxy for IRD, through the usage of a novel methodology, allowing for non-destructive and total analysis of individual samples and whole sample cores. Through X-ray fluorescence of bulk sample and of each samples size fraction, as well as X-ray diffraction of the size fraction, we were able to determine elemental abundance and mineralogy of size fractions within the sample and compare them against the relative amounts of IRD also present. Using this data and performing statistical analysis via computational programs, such as R, we have begun to narrow down on several potential proxies for IRD which can be explored in future experimentation.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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