Sediment facies provide fundamental information to interpret palaeoenvironments, climatic variation, archaeological aspects and natural resource potentials since they are summary products of depositional processes, environmental conditions and biological activities for a given time and location. The conventional method of facies discrimination relies on macroscopic and/or microscopic determination of sediment structures combined with basic physical, chemical and biological information. It is a qualitative measure, depending on observer-dependent sedimentological descriptions, which cannot be reanalysed readily by further studies. Quantitative laboratory measurements can overcome this disadvantage, but are in need of large sample numbers and/or high temporal resolution, and are time-, labour- and cost-intensive. In order to facilitate an observer-independent and efficient method of facies classification, our study evaluates the potential of combining four non-destructive down-core scanning techniques: magnetic susceptibility (MS), X-ray computed tomography (CT), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and digital photography. These techniques were applied on selected sections of sediment cores recovered around the island of Norderney (East Frisian Wadden Sea, Germany). We process and integrate the acquired scanning measurements of XRF elemental intensities, represented by principal components, MS, CT density and lightness of eight sediment facies previously recognised by conventional facies analysis: moraine, eolian/fluvial, soil, peat, lagoonal, sand flat, channel fill and beach-foreshore. A novel type of density plot is introduced to visualise the digitised sediment information that allows an observer-independent differentiation of these facies types. Thus, the presented methodology provides the first step towards automated supervised facies classification with the potential to reproduce human assessments in a fully reproducible and quantitative manner.

中文翻译：

---

东弗里斯兰瓦登海（德国）沉积物的相特征：岩心扫描技术的新见解

沉积相为解释古环境、气候变化、考古方面和自然资源潜力提供了基本信息，因为它们是给定时间和地点的沉积过程、环境条件和生物活动的总结产物。传统的相鉴别方法依赖于沉积物结构的宏观和/或微观确定，并结合基本的物理、化学和生物信息。它是一种定性测量，取决于依赖于观察者的沉积学描述，不能通过进一步的研究轻易地重新分析。定量实验室测量可以克服这一缺点，但需要大量样本和/或高时间分辨率，并且时间、劳动力和成本密集。为了促进一种独立于观察者和有效的相分类方法，我们的研究评估了结合四种非破坏性岩心扫描技术的潜力：磁化率 (MS)、X 射线计算机断层扫描 (CT)、X 射线荧光（XRF）和数码摄影。这些技术应用于在 Norderney 岛（德国东弗里斯兰瓦登海）周围回收的沉积岩芯的选定部分。我们处理和整合获得的 XRF 元素强度扫描测量值，由以前常规相分析识别的八种沉积物相的主成分、MS、CT 密度和亮度表示：冰碛、风成/河流、土壤、泥炭、泻湖、沙坪、渠道填充和海滩前滩。引入了一种新型密度图来可视化数字化沉积物信息，从而允许独立于观察者区分这些相类型。因此，所提出的方法为自动化监督相分类提供了第一步，并有可能以完全可重复和定量的方式再现人类评估。