Reading provenance from ubiquitous quartz: understanding the changes occurring in its lattice defects in its journey in time and space by physical methods

Quantitative provenance analysis studies are instrumental in understanding the tectonic and climatic processes that are shaping Earth`s landscape.

Although the most abundant mineral in the sedimentary system is quartz, almost all studies in provenance analysis investigate accessory minerals. Quartz crystals contain a vast number of point defects, intrinsic or due to impurities.

Although our understanding on the formation and dynamics of these defects is far from complete, a few of these defects in quartz are used for dating Quaternary sediments by luminescence (thermoluminescence (TL) or optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)) or by electron spin resonance (ESR).

PROGRESS aims at proving that point defects in quartz have also the capacity to carry genetic information and their modifications can provide evidence for antiquity, metamorphism (or lack thereof) as well as knowledge on weathering, transport, or recycling.

This information can be unravelled by ESR and luminescence methods in combination with microscopic techniques such as scanning electron microscopy coupled with cathodoluminescence (CL) wavelength resolved spectroscopy.

To understand changes that are occurring at atomic level in quartz in nature in geological time, PROGRESS will investigate quartz grains extracted from independently dated old to young quartz-bearing continental crustal sources, metamorphosed rocks versus their unmetamorphosed equivalents, fresh versus highly weathered samples, as well as intrusive versus volcanic rocks, besides conducting experiments in laboratory environments.

To tackle nature`s complexity during sediment movement in space and time the effect of physical and chemical changes that occur during transport of quartz grains will be investigated by the study of river sediments that drain different lithologies.

These investigations will allow a simple quartz based fingerprinting method to be developed, that will have a significant impact on quantitative provenance studies.