Geology and Economic Potential of Limestone in Gunung Rapat Area, Perak, Malaysia

This project is about the geology and economic potential of limestone in the Gunung Rapat area. The area is located in the Kinta Valley near Simpang Pulai, Perak, Malaysia and mostly made up of limestone hills that were remnants of massive carbonate beds covered with alluvial sediments. These areas are very well known for its limestone hills as one of the main carbonate rock formation there. The objective of this research is to conduct a geological study as well as to produce a geological map of the study area. The study includes several structural and laboratory analysis such as thin section analysis, Total Carbon analysis, X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Whiteness Test and Loss on Ignition (LOI) test, to determine the properties and mineral composition found in the rock as well as to assess the quality of the limestone there to identify its economic potential. The results show that the geology of Gunung Rapat areas are mostly made up of limestone hills which characterized by steep cliff, and surrounded by alluvium sediments. The lithology can be described as from the rock sample collected as white to light brown colored and range from fine to coarse grain size. The grains are good to medium sorted and the samples can be classified as crystalline carbonate. The samples from outcrop area C shows significant boundary between the fine grains and coarse grains rocks, which is the indication of metamorphism process had occurred near the area. Meanwhile, samples from outcrop J indicates that dolomitization process had occurred on the northeastern part of the study area. The northern parts of the Gunung Rapat are structurally active and have high complexities. The thin section and SEM result shows that the limestone samples are mostly high in calcite content, the total
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carbon shows that the limestones samples have about 13% of carbon content and the XRF result shows that most of the limestone samples from Gunung Rapat area are high in Calcium content. Moreover, the whiteness test and LOI analysis result indicates that the limestone from the Gunung Rapat area are mostly suitable to be used in cement manufacturing, dimension stone and tiles industry as well as for glass and ceramics industries.