STUDY OF CARBONATE FRACTION OF THE SHELF SEDIMEHTS OFF 'l'BE NILE DELTA.

STUDY OF CARBONATE FRACTION OF THE SHELF SEDIMEHTS

OFF ‘l’BE NILE DELTA.

M.A. EL-SABROUTI, N.M. DOWIDAR AND A.A. EI-SAMMAK.
oceanography Department, Faculty of science, Alex. Univ.
ABSTRACT
The carbonate fraction of the shelf sediments between
Ag8lAi and Arish waa studied by means of their carbonate
content and Mineralogical cOlq)Osition. The highest
concentrations were found weat of Rosetta reaching their
mexillUll content off Allami. On the other hand, the content of
carbonate decreases east of Rosetta attaining its lower
content off Port-Said, then gradually increases up to Arish.
X-ray diffraction analysis shows that aragonite is the
dominant carbonate mineral in Agami/Abu Qir region with
subordinate calcite and Mg-calcite. Non of the carbonate
minerals was recorded east of Rosetta. These minerals are
substituted by quartz, feldspars and mica indicating that
the Nile terrigenous sediments are generally close to quartz
sands and pelitic muds. The present study shows that the
investigated area can be divided into two regiOl’ll: Ag8llli/Abu
Qir characterized by high carbonate content and
Rosetta/Arish region characterized by low carbonate cc tent.