MINERALOGICAL ALTERATION OF KERRI-KERRI SANDSTONE

EXPOSED IN GOMBE, GONGOLA BASIN

Y.B. Mohammed and M.W. Sidi

Department of Geology

University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria.

E-mail: batayakubu69@gmail.com, bzakirai@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out in the outskirt of Gombe Town, Upper Benue Trough with view of determining the mineralogical composition and alteration of the exposed Kerri-Kerri Sandstone. The investigation reveals that minerals observed under cross-polar and polarized light include the following: quartz, feldspar, iron oxide and limonite. Quartz is more abundant in the samples collected and showed that the source is possibly quartz–bearing plutonic rock. Mineralogically, the sandstone is immature because the proportion of feldspar is greater than 20%. The alteration of the sandstone was prove by delicate external and internal morphologies which preclude sedimentary transport and spatial relationships of detrital and diagenetic components indicating an origin which post–dates deposition as an earlier diagenetic stage, and thirdly, compositions which differ radically from similar materials of detrital origin.