Defining element associations and inferring geological processes from total element concentrations in Australian catchment outlet sediments: Multivariate analysis of continental-scale geochemical data

In this paper, the geochemical composition of surficial regolith is statistically analysed and compared to independent geoscientific datasets to infer processes governing regolith composition. Surface (0-10 cm depth) and sub-surface (similar to 60-80 cm depth) transported sediment samples from the National Geochemical Survey of Australia were analysed for total element content in both coarse (<2 mm) and fine (<75 mu m) grain-size fractions. Multi-element total content data was obtained from mainly XRF and total digestion ICP-MS analysis, of which the 50 elements satisfying data quality criteria, plus Loss on Ignition, are used herein. Censored data (