Abstract
The origin of monocrystalline quartz, the dominant detrital component of most sandstones, can still not be determined quantitatively with the petrographic microscope and published classifications. With the aid of a technically improved cathodoluminescence microscope that enables the study of low luminescent minerals, six classes of monocrystalline former high-quartz are distinguished and used as a guide to provenance. Quartz crystals from plutonic rocks and phenocrysts from volcanites show a wide variation of luminescence colours from blue through mauve to violet. Volcanic quartz phenocrysts usually show a zonation or irregular distribution of luminescence colours which generally enables distinction from plutonic quartz. Red luminescing quartz is also of volcanic origin and crystallizes at lower temperatures than phenocrysts. Quartz crystals which have been plastically deformed, as evidenced by strong undulatory extinction, luminesce bluish-black whereas brown quartz is derived from regional metamorphic rocks. Metamorphic quartz that recrystallised at high temperatures (hornfels, granulites) reverts to a blue luminescence colour comparable to plutonic quartz. Luminescence petrography also allows discrimination between various types of feldspars and rock fragments and to estimate quantitatively their abundance. Furthermore, cathodoluminescence enables detrital grains to be distinguished from syntaxial overgrowths in well cemented sandstones so that the original grain size and roundness parameters can be determined.
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Matter, A., Ramseyer, K. (1985). Cathodoluminescence Microscopy as a Tool for Provenance Studies of Sandstones. In: Zuffa, G.G. (eds) Provenance of Arenites. NATO ASI Series, vol 148. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2809-6_9
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