The Fluvial Concentration of Heavy Minerals in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, Central Ireland

Abstract

The detrital mineralogies of both alluvial sediments and their glacigenic and bedrock sedimentary sources undergoing fluvial entrainment in the mountains are outlined. Relationships between patterns of heavy mineral concentration in the alluvial sediments and the controlling factors of source material distribution and provenance, the hydrodynamics of heavy minerals, the spatial variability in process environments of concentration and the interaction of these factors are deduced and the spatial distributions of correlated heavy mineral assemblages and concentrations are explained. Thus, a better understanding is gained of the processes and process interactions responsible for alluvial heavy mineral concentration in paraglacial environments.

Keywords:

• Alluvial heavy minerals
• principal components analysis
• Slieve Bloom