Vertical Distribution of Magnetic Parameters and Total Equivalent Iron Concentration and their Relationships with Soil Parent Material Lithology

Magnetic susceptibility is an indicator of material magnetic properties that some of the mineral particles of the soil are not exceptional from this feature. The present study was conducted to determine the vertical distribution of magnetic susceptibility (X), frequency-dependent magnetic susceptibility (Xfd) and its correlation with total iron concentration in 15 soil profiles with igneous, sedimentary and alluvial parent materials located in the central of zanjan province. The results showed an obvious effect of the amount of parent material lithology on the magnetic susceptibility of the soils. The maximum and minimum magnetic susceptibility in the soils which formed from igneous rocks and sedimentary rocks were found between 200 - 400 x 10-8m3kg-1 and 42 - 158 x 10-8m3kg-1, respectively. Although, the soil formation process affected on increasing the magnetic susceptibility of it, but due to high levels of magnetic minerals in samples of igneous rock, the effect of parent material lithogenic on soil formation processes was high. Magnetic susceptibility in soils formed from sedimentary rocks was more than similar their parent materials that was the reason for pedogenic formation of ferromagnetic minerals. There was a considerable difference between magnetic susceptibility variation model in soils derived on igneous rocks with sedimentary rocks. In the profile of alluvial soils, vertical distribution of total equivalent iron concentration and amount of magnetic susceptibility (118 – 567 x 10-8m3kg-1) were related to adjacent land unit parent material, chronosequence and soil forming process. Total equivalent iron concentration was in a same trend of magnetic susceptibility distribution.