The sediments of the Sawa lake surrounded area, southern Iraq, have unique proprieties that are interesting to researchers. Four sites located at varying distances from the lake were selected to study some of the properties of the lake sediment. The results indicate that the study soil is saline soils because of the values of the three salinity criteria (EC, TDS, and NaCl(. The values of electrical conductivity ranged between (100.11 and 74.78) ds.m−1for surface depths, whereas for subsurface depths ranged between (14.66 and 38.55) ds.m−1. The values of the total soluble salts ranged from (7.4 and 85.67) g/L. The percentage of sodium chloride ranged between (3.1 and 8.5)%. The results present that the soils of the study fall within the neutral to the low basal soils as the values of the degree of interaction ranged between (7.00 and 7.55). The sand proportion in soil texture was more than clay and loam proportions, which ranged between (420 and 780) g.kg−1. The dominance of the intermediate soil texture (loam) category for most depths of the study soil (S.C.L, S.L(. The distribution of sand particles of different sizes took the following patterns: The first location, which is far from the lake was the dominance of the soft particles rather than coarse particles. The second site, the closest to the lake, was the dominance of rougher particles. The soft and semi-soft particles of the sand were prevalent in the third and fourth sites, which were the distances between (155) m to (147) m, respectively. The results indicated the convergence of sediment content of light and heavy metals in all locations and homogeneity of distribution of metals in all sites.

A study and diagnosis of heavy and light sand minerals were conducted for some soils in southern and northern Iraq, as the soils in southern Iraq from Maysan Governorate were represented in four regions and included soils (Ali Al-Gharbi, Al-Batira, Al-Maymouna, Al-Tayyib). And four areas of the soils of northern Iraq from the governorate of Erbil and included soils (Shaqlawa, Salah El-Din area, Kori, and Harir), as the surface depths (0-30) cm were chosen for all the soils studied. The results showed the predominance of quartz minerals in all soils of the study within the light part of light sand minerals and attributed the dominance to their resistance to weathering in addition to being inherited from the original material while the dominance of the opaque minerals and all the studied soils appeared within the heavy fraction of sand minerals, the sovereignty was attributed to the nature of the sediments, their source, and the severity of the weathering process that affected them. The results also showed the similarity in the mineral composition with the difference in the proportions of their distribution. This difference in the relative distribution is due to the effect of sedimentation processes. Which is a reflection of the variation in the physiographic sites and its effect on the mineral content of the sediments, and because the soil samples are located within the flood plains that were formed by floods occurring in the river basins, which reflected the difference in the relative distribution of sand minerals for the soils of Erbil Governorate, as they are outside the range of riverine operations which It is attributed to the nature of the topography and geography of the land in northern Iraq that differs from its south.

No abstract

This study has been undertaken to investigate the mineralogical properties and morphological features of sand fraction in some soils of Baghdad / Iraq.The morphological features of sand fractions were studied by Polarized optical microscope. Results have shown that the grains of these minerals from samples of sands have different colors, those from the surface horizons have dark brownish spots, due to staining by organic matter, and have a yellowish– to yellowish brown spots due to accumulation of Iron oxides.Results of light minerals indicated that quartz is dominant due to effect of parent material of these soils. Two types of opaque minerals (black and brown) are found, whereas the brown opaque minerals were obvious in heavy minerals.Three groups of transparent heavy minerals are found, stable minerals (Pyroxen and Amphibole), metastable minerals (Epidote and Garnet), and Ultra stable minerals (Zircon and Tourmaline).