Critical evaluation of six tectonic setting discrimination diagrams using geochemical data of Neogene sediments from known tectonic settings

An attempt is made to evaluate 6 tectonic setting discrimination diagrams (1 discriminant function and 5 bivariate diagrams) frequently used by many researchers. For this purpose, an extensive database was established for major element geochemistry derived from Miocene to Recent sand and sandstone (medium to fine-grained) samples collected from a variety of tectonic settings including (1) passive margin (PM) setting, (2) active continental margin (ACM) setting, and (3) oceanic island arc (OIA) setting. Our results suggest that the discrimination fields proposed to infer tectonic settings for six commonly used discrimination diagrams do not work properly for the analyzed Miocene to Recent sediments. The % success for these diagrams varies from 0% to about 62%. We therefore recommend that these diagrams be used with prudence.