Functional data analysis as a tool to correlate textural and geochemical data

This paper discusses the use of functional data analysis to determine the interactions between the chemical composition and grain size. The proposed method is compared for a case study with others that involve the determination of the coefficient of correlation between the concentration of each chemical element in a bulk sample and representative points in the granulometric curve. The results obtained by the two approaches are consistent and indicate an increasing concentration of certain metals in the fine particle-size fractions. Moreover, functional data analysis provides useful additional information on the relationship between the concentration of the chemical elements in bulk samples and particle size distribution.