Mathematical approach to calculate indices for depositional environments of pelagic-hemipelagic-terrigenous sediments on the basis of metallic element concentrations

Modern marine sediments can be classified into terrigenous, hemipelagic, and pelagic types according to the distances from the land for the sites recovered and in terms of lithological characteristics of sediments. Ancient cherts are the best sedimentary rocks to reconstruct ancient depositional environments and hemipelagic and pelagic cherts can be identified in terms of lithologic and stratigraphic characteristics. However, geochemical characteristics of modern sediments and ancient cherts can discriminate them into these three types. Particularly, the degree of correlation between Fe and Mg in clay minerals is the most effective criterion for the classification, because the concentration of pelagic clay minerals in which the Fe/Mg ratio is constant may become indices for the classification into the three types. The correlation coefficient and goodness-of-fit to a certain regression line were used as indices of the classification and calculated for several sets of modern sediments and ancient cherts totalling to more than 400 samples. The correlation coefficients and the student-t values for the coefficients become better classification indices than the goodness-of-fit andF-values of the analysis of variance. Goodness-of-fit andF-values can be only used as subsidiary indices for the main classification indices of the correlation coefficients. The classification on the basis of the degree of correlation between Fe and Mg is effective and this approach can be used for other major chemical elements such as Al, K, and Na, if some sequential values of chemical analyses are available.