Provenance of quartz grains from soils over Quaternary terraces along the Guadalquivir River, Spain Molinero García, Alberto Müller, A. Martín García, Juan Manuel Simonsen, S.L Delgado Calvo-Flores, Rafael Provenance study Quartz cathodoluminescence Quartz trace elements Quartz microinclusions Soil Guadalquivir valley This work was supported by a grant from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España (“Mediterranean Soil Typologies versus Quartz. At the frontier of pedogenic knowledge”; Ref. CGL2016-80308-P). Alberto Molinero-García acknowledges the PhD funding (BES-2017-080078) provided by MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and FSE “El FSE invierte en tu futuro”. This work is part of the Doctoral Dissertation of Alberto Molinero-García. We thank Dr. Mathieu Duval and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive criticism of the script and their valuable suggestions. We also acknowledge Tanya Shew for English proofreading. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada / CBUA. The characterisation of quartz grains’ chemical and mineralogical properties in sediments and sedimentary rocks is widely used in provenance studies. This paper analyses quartz grains from the coarse sand fraction in soils in Quaternary fluvial terraces (Guadalquivir River, southern Spain). The tentative soil ages are 0.3 ka (Haplic Fluvisol), 7 ka (Haplic Calcisol), 70 ka (Cutanic Luvisol), 300 ka (Lixic Calcisol) and 600 ka (Cutanic Luvisol). The quartz grains analyses shed light on the sedimentological history of these terraces. Scanning electron microscope cathodoluminescence (SEM-CL) characteristics, micro inclusion inventory established by Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) and trace element contents determined with laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) of quartz grains permitted distinguishing six types of grains in the soils studied: metamorphic quartz (type 1), undeformed granitic quartz (type 2), strongly altered granitic quartz (type 3), recrystallised (deformed) granitic quartz (type 4), sandstone-derived quartz (type 5) and hydrothermal quartz grains (type 6). Metamorphic quartz grains (type 1) come from the Sierra Morena (Iberian Massif) and Sierra Nevada (Internal Betic Zone). Granitic quartz grains (types 2 to 4) come from Los Pedroches batholith and its associated plutons (Santa Elena and Linares). The sandstone-derived quartz type 5 comes from the numerous sandstone outcrops scattered in the central catchment area of the Guadalquivir River. Finally, hydrothermal quartz grains (type 6) originate from hydrothermal veins associated with subvolcanic rocks of the Los Pedroches batholith. Variations were noted in the proportions of quartz types in soils of different ages, attributed to spatial and temporal changes in the catchment area. The most remarkable change occurred between 500 and 240 ka ago when the catchment area extended into Sierra Nevadás metamorphic rocks, well reflected in type 1 content (lower in P2, P4, P5 and PM) and their characteristics (quartz with less healed fractures, less Al content, bigger mica microinclusions, smaller Al/Ti ratio) in the post-500–240 ka soils. Our study shows that the combined study of SEM-CL characteristics, micro inclusions (SEM-EDX), and trace element contents (LA-ICP-MS) of quartz grains is an efficient approach for characterising the provenance of quartz grains in the sand fraction of soils. 2022-03-02T12:12:36Z 2022-03-02T12:12:36Z 2022-05-15 info:eu-repo/semantics/article A. Molinero-García et al. Provenance of quartz grains from soils over Quaternary terraces along the Guadalquivir River, Spain. Geoderma 414 (2022) 115769. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115769] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/73066 10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115769 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 España Elsevier