Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Estimation of carbonate, total organic carbon, and biogenic silica content by FTIR and XRF techniques in lacustrine sediments

  • Original paper
  • Published:
Journal of Paleolimnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Major components of lacustrine sediments, such as carbonates, organic matter, and biogenic silica, provide significant paleoenvironmental information about lake systems. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques are fast, cost effective, efficient methods to determine the relative abundances of these components. We investigate the potential of these techniques using sediments from two large lakes, Lake Malawi in Africa and Lake Qinghai in China. Our results show statistically significant correlations of conventionally measured concentrations of carbonate (%CaCO3), total organic carbon (%TOC), and biogenic silica (%BSi), with absorbance in the corresponding FTIR spectral regions and with XRF elemental ratios including calcium:titanium (Ca/Ti), incoherent:coherent X-ray scatter intensities (Inc/Coh), and silicon:titanium (Si/Ti), respectively. The correlation coefficients (R) range from 0.66 to 0.96 for comparisons of FTIR results and conventional measurements, and from 0.70 to 0.90 for XRF results and conventional measurements. Both FTIR and XRF techniques exhibit great potential for rapid assessment of inorganic and organic contents of lacustrine sediments. However, the relationship between XRF-ratios or FTIR-absorbances and abundances of corresponding sedimentary components can vary with sediment source and lithology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen DT, Palen EJ, Haimov MI, Hering SV, Young JR (1994) Fourier-Transform Infrared-Spectroscopy of aerosol collected in a low-pressure impactor (Lpi/Ftir)—method development and field calibration. Aerosol Sci Tech 21:325–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alvarado A, Tuazon EC, Aschmann SM, Arey J, Atkinson R (1999) Products and mechanisms of the gas-phase reactions of OH radicals and O-3 with 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol. Atmos Environ 33:2893–2905

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • An ZS, Wang P, Shen J, Zhang YX, Zhang PZ, Wang SM, Li XQ, Sun QL, Song YG, Al L, Zhang YC, Jiang SR, Liu XQ, Wang Y (2006) Geophysical survey on the tectonic and sediment distribution of Qinghai Lake basin. Sci China Ser D 49:851–861

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertaux J, Frohlich F, Ildefonse P (1998) Multicomponent analysis of FTIR spectra: quantification of amorphous and crystallized mineral phases in synthetic and natural sediments. J Sediment Res 68:440–447

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown ET, Johnson TC, Scholz CA, Cohen AS, King JW (2007) Abrupt change in tropical African climate linked to the bipolar seesaw over the past 55,000 years. Geophys Res Lett 34:L20702

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castaneda IS, Werne JP, Johnson TC (2007) Wet and arid phases in the southeast African tropics since the last glacial maximum. Geology 35:823–826

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coury C, Dillner AM (2008) A method to quantify organic functional groups and inorganic compounds in ambient aerosols using attenuated total reflectance FTIR spectroscopy and multivariate chemometric techniques. Atmos Environ 42:5923–5932

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Croudace IW, Rindby A, Rothwell RG (2006) ITRAX: Description and evaluation of a new multi-function X-ray core scanner. In: Rothwell RG (ed) New techniques in sediment core analysis. London, Geological Society, Special Publications 267:51–63

  • Demaster DJ (1981) The supply and accumulation of silica in the marine environment. Geochim Cosmoschim Acta 45:1715–1732

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaffey SJ (1986) Spectral reflectance of carbonate minerals in the visible and near-infrared (0.35-2.55 microns)—calcite, aragonite, and dolomite. Am Min 71:151–162

    Google Scholar 

  • Giralt S, Rico-Herrero MT, Vega JC, Valero-Garces BL (2011) Quantitative climate reconstruction linking meteorological, limnological and XRF core scanner datasets: the Lake Sanabria case study, NW Spain. J Paleolimnol 46:487–502

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hedges JI, Oades JM (1997) Comparative organic geochemistries of soils and marine sediments. Org Geochem 27:319–361

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson ACG, Holmes JA (2009) Palaeolimnological evidence for environmental change over the past millennium from Lake Qinghai sediments: a review and future research prospective. Quatern Int 194:134–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herbert TD, Tom BA, Burnett C (1992) Precise major component determinations in deep-sea sediments using Fourier-Transform Infrared-Spectroscopy. Geochim Cosmoschim Acta 56:1759–1763

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes MA, Watkins DK, Norris RD (2004) Paleocene cyclic sedimentation in the western North Atlantic, ODP Site 1051, Blake Nose. Mar Geol 209:31–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaccard SL, Galbraith ED, Sigman DM, Haug GH (2011) A pervasive link between Antarctic ice core and subarctic Pacific sediment records over the past 800 kyrs. Quat Sci Rev 29:206–212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson TC, Brown ET, McManus J, Barry S, Barker P, Gasse F (2002) A high-resolution paleoclimate record spanning the past 25,000 years in southern East Africa. Science 296:113–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson TC, Brown ET, Shi JM (2011) Biogenic silica deposition in Lake Malawi, East Africa over the past 150,000 years. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 303:103–109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kovac N, Fraganeli J, Bajt O, Orel B, Vuk AS (2005) Investigation of sediment samples from the Gulf of Trieste (northern Adriatic) by FTIR spectroscopy. Mater Geoenviron 52:81–85

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu B, Xu H, Lan JH, Liu XY, Hou ZH, Dong JB (2010) A preliminary study on the environmental significance of biogenic silica in Qinghai Lake (in Chinese with English abstract). Quat Sci 30:1169–1176

    Google Scholar 

  • Mecozzi M, Pietrantonio E, Amici M, Romanelli G (2001) Determination of carbonate in marine solid samples by FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. Analyst 126:144–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mecozzi M, Pietrantonio E, Pietroletti M (2009) The roles of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids in the process of aggregation of natural marine organic matter investigated by means of 2D correlation spectroscopy applied to infrared spectra. Spectrochim Acta A 71:1877–1884

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosén P, Hammarlund D (2007) Effects of climate, fire and vegetation development on Holocene changes in total organic carbon concentration in three boreal forest lakes in northern Sweden. Biogeosciences 4:975–984

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosén P, Persson P (2006) Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIRS), a new method to infer past changes in tree-line position and TOC using lake sediment. J Paleolimnol 35:913–923

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosén P, Vogel H, Cunningham L, Reuss N, Conley DJ, Persson P (2010) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a new method for rapid determination of total organic and inorganic carbon and biogenic silica concentration in lake sediments. J Paleolimnol 43:247–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shanahan TM, Overpeck JT, Hubeny JB, King J, Hu FS, Hughen K, Miller G, Black J (2008) Scanning micro-X-ray fluorescence elemental mapping: a new tool for the study of laminated sediment records. Geochem Geophys Geosyst 9:Q02016

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen J, Liu XQ, Wang SM, Matsumoto R (2005) Palaeoclimatic changes in the Qinghai Lake area during the last 18,000 years. Quatern Int 136:131–140

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stehfest K, Toepel J, Wilhelm C (2005) The application of micro-FTIR spectroscopy to analyze nutrient stress-related changes in biomass composition of phytoplankton algae. Plant Physiol Biochem 43:717–726

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swann GEA, Patwardhan SV (2011) Application of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) for assessing biogenic silica sample purity in geochemical analyses and palaeoenvironmental research. Clim Past 7:65–74

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vogel H, Rosen P, Wagner B, Melles M, Persson P (2008) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a new cost-effective tool for quantitative analysis of biogeochemical properties in long sediment records. J Paleolimnol 40:689–702

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler M, Jilbert T, de Lange GJ, Lourens LJ, Reichart GJ (2008) Bromine counts from XRF scanning as an estimate of the marine organic carbon content of sediment cores. Geochem Geophys Geosyst 9:Q05009

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant EAR-0602412 to Colman. We thank Dr. Thomas C. Johnson for providing Malawi sediment samples. We thank Sarah Grosshuesch for help with carbonate and TOC laboratory analyses.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN, 55812, USA

    Xiuju Liu, Steven M. Colman, Erik T. Brown, Elizabeth C. Minor & Hongyu Li

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Xiuju Liu

  3. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN, 55812, USA

    Erik T. Brown

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN, 55812, USA

    Elizabeth C. Minor

  5. Water Resources Science Program, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN, 55812, USA

    Hongyu Li

Authors
  1. Xiuju Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Steven M. Colman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Erik T. Brown
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Elizabeth C. Minor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Hongyu Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiuju Liu.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Liu, X., Colman, S.M., Brown, E.T. et al. Estimation of carbonate, total organic carbon, and biogenic silica content by FTIR and XRF techniques in lacustrine sediments. J Paleolimnol 50, 387–398 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-013-9733-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-013-9733-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation