Fine Sand Mineralogy in Relation to Landforms of the Ghaggar River Basin in Haryana and Punjab

The fine sand mineralogy of 15 pedons on different landforms representing the upper, middle and lower basins of the Ghaggar river in Haryana and Punjab was studied. Land types demarcated were recent flood plains, levees and bars, plains, relict channel and old basin. Quartz was predominant followed by muscovite in the light mineral fractions. Other minerals were albite, oligoclase, orthoclase and sericite. The heavy minerals were hornblende, iron ores, biotite, chlorite, tourmaline, zircon, epidote, apatite, garnet and sphene. The order of dominance of light and heavy minerals was different in all the landforms. Their occurrence is indicative of alluvial origin while parent rocks are of the parametamorphic and sedimentary types Morphological and physicochemical properties and profile distribution of total elements indicated relatively low degree of development with more lithological discountinuity in recent landforms (channel courses and levees), and better development with lesser breaks in older ones (plain and old basin). Distribution of minerals and low degree of pedogenic development in situ suggested their origin to be primary in nature. This was mainly due to the influence of preservation of sediment sequences with less time and lower intensity of weathering