CHEMICAL AND MINERALOGICAL PROPERTIES OF SOME TOSHKA SOILS. | ||||
| Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||||
| Article 4, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2005, Page 2293-2313 PDF (1.48 MB) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2005.227507 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
| E.I. Gaber1; A.S. EI-Hassanin1; H.H. Hassona2; A.M. Khalifa1 | ||||
| 1Dept. of Natural Resources, Inst. of African Research and Studies, Cairo University. | ||||
| 2inst. of Soil, Water and Environment, Agrlc. Research Center, Giza. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Nowadays. Egypt is starting some gigantic programs and projects which can be called national projects for long-term strategies and apply scientific planning to lay out the foundations of a modern society. Toshka project is the most important national project in Egypt now to go out from the narrow Nile Valley. and to set up new agro- industn‘al centers in the Western Desert. This project needs more detailed scientific research and studies. Therefore the aim of this investigation is to study the chemical and mineralogical characteristics of some Toshka soils. Seventeen soil profiles were taken to represent the study area. These profiles were morphologically described and their chemical and mineralogical properties were evaluated. Total CaCOs % is mainly low and ranges between 2.49% to 25.1%. Soil salinity is also low, Meanwhile, soluble cations are dominated by Sodium followed by Calcium. Meanwhile, Soluble anions generally follow the order of 804'2 > Cl " > HC03" . Gypsum content is checked out in soil samples, to verify the reason of sulfate occurrence. but there is no significant amount of it (Gypsum % is less than 3% in all samples). Cation exchange capacity ranges from 1.72 to 10.5 meqllOD g of dry soil. The dominant exchangeable cation is CaT followed by Mg” .Na’ and finally, K‘ which is the least abundant. Exchangeable sodium percentage of soil samples ranges between 0.23 and 37.5 %. Mineralogical studies of clay fraction by X~ray difiraction‘ differential thermal analysis and infrared spectroscopy indicate that the clay fraction of the studied samples are generally dominated by kaolinlte with less pronounced occurrence of Smectite. The identified accessory minerals are mainly dominate by quartz. Followed by calcite and goethite. Meanwhile. Mineralogical studies of fine sand fraction showed that, quartz is the dominant light mineral. Few feldspar grains have been also recorded. Other minerals are very rare. Opaque minerals constitute about 77% of the heavy minerals. Pyroxenes and amphiboles are the dominant non-opaque heavy mineral followed by zircon, epidote and biotite. | ||||
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