Holocene marine sediments of Abu Dhabi area, United Arab Emirates

Study of rare earth elements (REE) in the sediments of Abu Dhabi area were recently carried out on bottom sediments. The geochemical behavior of specific REEs makes them useful tracers in marine environments. The concentration of any one REE relative to the other will show only slight variations from one marine phase to another and from source rock to sediment. The results of chondrite normalized patterns of REEs showed flat HREE pattern rather than enrichment of LREEs with average La/Yb of 8.7 while the chondrite normalized value showed low (Gd/Yb)N ratios (1.55). A semi positive Eu anomaly and a slightly negative Ce anomaly which is an indicator of marine depositional environments. The negative Ce anomaly was also partially due to early stage weathering which led to less pronounced REE fractionation. This might be due to the location of the sampling area which was completely covered with sands and shell fragments where the abundance of quartz and calcite as natural carbonate sediments at this site would tend to dilute the REE abundance. In the study area the REEs concentration found to be geogenic origins and the distributions were not related to anthropogenic sources.