The activity is related to the mineralogy and geological history of clays. Soils with same value liquidity limit or plasticity index can have very different characteristics depending on amount type clay minerals. methylene blue characterizes clays reflects surface activity. Ten inactive soils contain minerals (kaolinite, illite), these absorb little water. Two swelling normal are composed illit...

Many people in sub-Saharan Africa have to rely on meager water resources within mudstones for their only water supply. Although mudstones have been extensively researched for their low permeability behavior, little research has been undertaken to examine their ability to provide sustainable water supplies. To investigate the factors controlling the occurrence of usable ground water in mudstone ...

Samples of fault gouge from the San Andreas Fault drill hole (SAFOD), a shale from the North Sea sedimentary basin and schists from metamorphic rocks in the Alps have been analyzed with high energy synchrotron X-rays to determine preferred orientation of mica and clay minerals. The method relies on obtaining 2D diffraction images which are then processed with the crystallographic Rietveld metho...

The East Asian summer monsoon controls the climatic regime of an extended region through temperature and precipitation changes. As the East Asian summer monsoon is primarily driven by the northern hemisphere summer insolation, such meteorological variables are expected to significantly change on the orbital timescale, influencing the composition of terrestrial sediments in terms of both mineral...

Environmental analysis of offshore shale members of Upper Pennsylvanian Midcontinent cyclothems was undertaken using a combination of high-resolution X-radiography, petrography, and geochemical analyses. A hierarchical sampling strategy permitted investigation of (1) broad stratigraphic and geographic patterns of compositional variation through analysis of three shale members (Hushpuckney, Star...

Field and laboratory data combined with geochronological information were used to investigate the nature and rates of pedogenesis of three late Holocene soils at the Lubbock Lake archaeological site (Southern High Plains of Texas). A variety of pedologic characteristics become better expressed with time, and aerosolic additions and burial of the soils significantly affect the development of the...

An impressive collection of chert artefacts from the Foeni Neolithic archaeological site (Timiş County, Banat region, Romania) is hosted by the Banat Museum in Timişoara. A representative set of seven specimens was non-destructively investigated using FT-Raman and ATR-FT-IR spectroscopy. The research was carried out for checking if these readily available, non-destructive, fast, and cheap metho...