Mineralogy of atmospheric dust deposits in the Naima-El Aioun basin (Eastern Morocco)

The naima-el aioun basin is a rural zone with a semi-arid climate,characterized by reduced organic matter soil and fragile vegetable cover. soils are removed easily by winds which confer to this zone a dusty atmosphere. this situation becomes more drastic by the particle emissions from cement factory and her raw materials careers (limestone and clay). to study the dust deposits in this zone,41 passive sensors were distributed randomly around the cement factory located in the naima-el aioun basin. they collect the dust deposits by gravitation's effect. to identify the dust mineralogy,x-rays diffraction (xrd) analysis is used. it allows the distinction and the identification of the industrial dust origin (cement factory) and the natural one. furthermore,xrd shows that the chimney dust emissions and the one collected by passive sensors installed inside the factory,does not contain the cement. however,the dust contains essentially the calcite (caco3) that is the principal mineralogical component of the industrial particle emissions. otherwise the natural dusts (soil particles) are rather characterized by quartz (sio2) as a principal mineralogical component. thus,the calcite/quartz ratio can be used as a good tracer of the atmospheric particles,originated from the cement factory.