Method for the discrimination between marine and terrestrial sedimentary environments by selectively extracted exchangeable strontium to barium ratio from terrigenous clastic sediments

Abstract

A method of selective extracting exchangeable strontium and barium from sediments, comprising, collecting a predetermined quantity of a sedimentary sample, removing biogenic clasts from the predetermined quantity of the sedimentary sample to provide a coarse filtered sedimentary sample, baking the coarse filtered sedimentary sample at a temperature less than 105° C., crushing the coarse filtered sedimentary sample to yield a fine filtered sedimentary sample having a sample grain size of less than 100 mesh, reacting a portion of the fine filtered sedimentary sample in a solution containing at least one of an ammonium acetate reactant and a sodium acetate reactant, measuring a strontium level within a liquid product of the solution, measuring a barium level within the liquid product of the solution and determining a ratio of the strontium level and the barium level of the liquid product.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.