Textural Characteristics and Depositional Environment of a Late Quaternary Alluvial Plain of Haryana

Abstract

The present study deals with the textural characteristics of the sediments from the exposed palaeochannel situated at Dhyangla village near Ladwa, district of Kurukshetra in north-western Haryana. It is a part of vast alluvial plains of India. Samples were taken from a 3 m thick exposed section. Grain size distribution and Palynofacies analyses of these sediments were carried out to study their textural parameters and the organic matter content respectively. Sediments are mostly fine to medium grained sand with silt percentage increasing upwards in the section. These sediments are mostly unimodal showing the grain size population controlled by a single type of grain size, mostly sand. Further the sand samples are moderately well sorted and mesokurtic in nature. Samples with silt are poorly sorted and leptokurtic with positive skewness, denoting those sediments have already sorted elsewhere in the high energy environment and are now transported and modified by the low energy environment. Palynofacies analysis also shows the presence of amorphous particles in the silt samples which indicate low energy environment of the sequence while presence of black debris in the sand samples indicates high energy depositions environment.