Magnetic susceptibility and grain size distribution as prospective tools for selective exploration and provenance study of iron sand deposits: A case study from Aceh, Indonesia

Almost all of the iron sand found in Indonesia, from Sumatra to Papua, is sandy deposit. Despite its variety of minerals, iron sand is commonly mined for low economic uses such as building material. As iron sands from different localities might have different characteristics (grain-size distribution, mineralogy, magnetic properties), such characteristics might in turn be used for provenance study or for selective mining. This study aims to examine iron sand deposits from two geographically close but geologically different regions, Lampanah and Anoi Itam, and to test the grain size distributions and their relationship with magnetic susceptibility as well as Fe content. In both Lampanah and Anoi Itam, the sizes of iron sands were predominantly medium sand (MS) and fine sand (FS), but they differed in mass percentage (M%). Generally, magnetic susceptibility increases as grain size decreases. Fe content is also grain size dependent, with higher Fe content in finer sizes. The results imply that the combination of grain size distribution and magnetic mineral composition might be used not only as a provenance indicator for iron sand deposits, but also as a criterion for selective mining.