Mineralogy of surface sediment from the Canadian Beaufort Shelf and Amundsen Gulf (Canadian Arctic)

For the semi-quantification of the major mineralogical components, bulk sediment XRD scans were processed in the software package X'Pert High-Score Plus (PANalytical) using the Rietveld full-pattern fitting method. This method permits the semi-quantification of whole-sediment mineralogy with a precision of 5-10% for phyllosilicates and 5% for non-phyllosilicates minerals. The quality of the Rietveld fitting procedure was evaluated for the R-profile and goodness-of-fit (GOF). The R-profile quantifies the difference between the observed and calculated patterns, whereas the GOF is the ratio between the R-weighted profile (RWP; best least-squares fit between observed and calculated patterns) and R-expected theoretical (Rexp; best possible value for the residual).