Mineralogical and physico-chemical study of four soils from different cereal regions of Morocco

The aim of this work is to investigate four samples of agricultural cereal soil,collected in four regions of morocco: tadla-azilal,chaouia-ouardigha,rabat-sale and meknes-tafilalet. mineralogical composition was determined by x-ray fluorescence analysis (fx). thermal analysis,infrared spectroscopy (ir) and x-ray diffraction (xrd) analysis were performed to characterize the studied soils. the results,of the fx analysis,showed that the most abundant major components are silica,alumina,iron oxide,calcium oxide,magnesium oxide and the organic component. the xrd patterns confirm that the soil from tadla-azilal region consists of quartz,calcite,illite and kaolinite. the soil sample of khouribga consists of quartz,calcite and dolomite. the soil sample from rabat-salé-zemmour consists of quartz and mica. the soil sample meknes-tafilalet consists of quartz and muscovite. the results of ir and thermal analysis confirm the mineralogical phases identified by xrd and lay in evidence the existence of organic matter in the four soil samples.