EDXRF+analysis+of+beach+rock+samples+of+Andaman+Island

NuclearSd~ceandTechniques20(2009)93-98EDXRFanalysisofbeachrocksamplesofAndamanIslandRavisankarR。，’EswaranP。ⅥjayAnandKRajalakshmiAPrasadMVR。SatpathyKKRajashekharCAlokAthavale’DepartmentofPhysics,SriSivasubramaniaNadarCollegeofEngineering,Kalavakkara,Chennai603110,Tamilnadu，India2DepartmentofPhysics,SMKFomraInstituteofTechnology,Thaiyur,Chennai603103，TamilnaIndiaEnvironmentalandIndustrialSafetySection,SafetyGroup，IndiraGandhiCentreforAtomicResearch，Kalpakkam603102，Tamilnadu，India4paleobiologyGroup,AgharkarResearchInstitute,Pune411004，IndiaAbstractBElementalcontentsofbeachrocksampleswereanalyzedusingEDXRFThesampleswerecollectedfromthreelocationsofAndamanIsland．TheA1，Ca,K，Fe，，Si，V'Co，Cu，Ba,Zn，Pb，CdandMncontentsweredetermined．Thegeochemicalbehaviorofelementsintherefonisdiscussed．Theelementalcontentsofbeachrocksamplesfrom~damanIslandaremuchbelowthevaluesofbothearthcrustandthatofTamilnaduregion．However,contentofthebiogenicelementCawasthehighestofallelements．TIlisisduetothetypicalbeachrockformation．KeywordsBeachrock。~daman，Multi—elementanalysis，EDXR1IntroductionBeachrockformationispeculiarcomparedtoothertypesofrockformations．Itisasedimentaryformationcommonlyappearingaslayereddepositinclinedtowardsthesea．Itisinfluencedbytheefectsofcarbonatecement-aragoniteormagnesiumcalciteiIlitiallyformedintheinter-tidalzone．Likethebeachitself,beachrockrepresentsatransitionbetweenthemarineandmeteoricenvironments，whereprocessesfromeachenvironmentcommonlyafectit．Beachrockalsoactsasaresistantbarriertoerosion，thusafectingtheshoreline’srateoferosionandoveralldevelopment．HoweverbeachrockcanbequiteusefulindescribinganddelineatingenvironmentsofdepositionL“．Beachrockformsmostcommonlyonbeachescomposedofcalcareousshellandcoralgrains，butitcanalsodevelopinbeachesofquartzsandorothermineralcomposition．Itformsbestonsandbeaches；shingleorconglomeraticbeachrockislessabundant．Thenaturalfactorofthebeach，suchasgentleslopeoftheforeshore，suficientshellcontentandgroundwatertemperaturehavealsofavoredtheformationofbe