The heavy minerals and provenances of the Neogene Guantao Formation in the Huanghua depression

The Q-mode cluster analysis and Q-mode factor analysis are employed to examine the areas of the heavy mineral associations from the Neogene Guantao Formation in the Huanghua depression aiming at determining the nature and types of the parent rocks in the study area.Four areas of heavy mineral associations have been comparted.The parent rocks from three of the above-mentioned areas can well be compared with those from their surrounding Yanshan, Cangxian and Chengning palaeouplifts.The source areas indicated by the stable coefficients of the heavy minerals also coincide with the positions of the three palaeouplifts cited above.Judged from higher stable coefficients of the heavy minerals,the rest one of the areas of heavy mineral associations which differs greatly from the above-mentioned three areas of heavy mineral associations should be dominated by the distal sediments,and their source areas should be far from the preceding palaeouplifts.There may be four isolated drainages in the study area: three are controlled by proximal rivers and one by distal rivers which may be related with ancient Huanghe drainages.