Mineralogy and geochemistry of pseudogley soils and recent alluvial clastic sediments in the Ngog-Lituba region, Southern Cameroon: An implication to their genesis

•Pseudogley soils are derived from the weathering of gneisses from the Yaoundé Group.•High depletion of several elements is observed in pseudogley soils.•Alluvial clastic clays result from the pseudogley erosion.•SEM and FTIR confirm that alluvia have the same mineral assemblage like pseudogley.•Alluvial clays are strongly enriched in alkali, earth-alkali oxides and several LILE.

Mineralogical and geochemical investigations have been done on the hydromorphic clays (pseudogley soils and recent alluvial clastic sediments) in the Sanaga Maritime region (Southern Cameroon). Pseudogley soils are developed on gneisses from the Yaoundé Group. They have a dark brown to greyish brown color, with silty clay texture. Their mineral assemblage is made up of kaolinite, goethite, quartz, smectite, rutile, muscovite–illite and feldspars. The alluvial clastic sediments are characterized by variable colors (purple yellow, greenish, dark brown and purple brown) and sandy clay to clay texture. The mineral assemblage of alluvial clays is similar to that of pseudogley soils. SEM observations confirm the presence of kaolinite, smectite, quartz and muscovite–illite. Infrared data show that kaolinite is more orderly in pseudogley than in the alluvial clastic sediments. The Ngog-Lituba gneisses have moderate contents in SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MgO, CaO, Na2O, K2O and several trace elements including REE. High element depletion is noticed in the pseudogley soils except Cr, V, Zr, Pb and REE. However, the alluvial clays are marked by a strong mobilization of LILE (Na, K, Ba, Rb and Sr) and REE, relative to the parent rock and pseudogley soils. The chondrite-normalized REE patterns are homogenous and parallel with Ce-anomalies. The (La/Yb)N shows that the REE fractionation increase from the parent rock to the alluvial clastic sediments. The mineralogical and geochemical features show that the clastic river sediments are derived from the erosion of the neighboring pseudogley materials before hydraulic sorting.