Clay mineral studies in the U.S.S.R., mainly since 1960, are summarized. Electron diffraction techniques especially have been developed and used extensively. Methods have been developed for simultaneous recording of DTA curves and other properties. Polytypism of phyllosilicates has been studied intensively by Zvyagin and others. Mucfi new information on the structure and morphology of halloysit...

Introduction: Over 13 years after landing at Meridiani Planum and in her 10 extended mission, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity continues to explore the rim of ~22 km diameter Endeavour crater [1]. The rim exposes material that is older than the S-rich, layered sedimentary rock covering the Meridiani plains and filling much of the interior of Endeavour. Clay mineral exposures at the rim have b...

A study was conducted to determine the dietary effects of a clay mineral (sodium bentonite, NaB) on manure gas emission, health, production, and meat characteristics of Hanwoo steers. Two diets fed to steers included a control diet (concentrate mix and rice straw) and a treatment diet (control diet+1.0% clay mineral/concentrate mix). Dietary NaB addition considerably reduced concentrations of g...

Long hollow inorganic nanoparticle nanotubes have been synthesized by templating of block copolymer electrospun fibers with clay mineral platelets followed by interlinking of the platelets using condensation reactions.

Many animals in the tropics of Africa, Asia and South America regularly visit so-called salt or mineral licks to consume clay or drink clay-saturated water. Whether this behavior is used to supplement diets with locally limited nutrients or to buffer the effects of toxic secondary plant compounds remains unclear. In the Amazonian rainforest, pregnant and lactating bats are frequently observed a...

Besides having a large capacity for taking up organic molecules, clay minerals can catalyze a variety of organic reactions. Derived from rock weathering, clay minerals would have been abundant in the early Earth. As such, they might be expected to play a role in chemical evolution. The interactions of clay minerals with biopolymers, including RNA, have been the subject of many investigations. T...

We introduce a nonbonded three-body harmonic potential energy term for Mg-O-H interactions for improved edge surface stability in molecular simulations. The new potential term is compatible with the Clayff force field and is applied here to brucite, a layered magnesium hydroxide mineral. Comparisons of normal mode frequencies from classical and density functional theory calculations are used to...

Environmental factors-especially soil properties-have been suggested as potentially important in the transmission of infectious prion diseases. Because binding to montmorillonite (an aluminosilicate clay mineral) or clay-enriched soils had been shown to enhance experimental prion transmissibility, we hypothesized that prion transmission among mule deer might also be enhanced in ranges with rela...

The clay mineralogy of Lower Cretaceous deep-sea fan sediment in the western North Atlantic is dominated by smectite in most intervals, and by illite in samples from intervals of high sand input. Different intervals of higIt'sand input are enriched in kaolinite. Kaolinite and illite levels do not correlate in this sediment, indicating that the input of each clay type was independent and represe...

Essene and Peacor (1995 = " E P " ) published a general review of clay mineral thermometry, the stability of clay minerals and the relevance to natural clay mineral assemblages. Some of the conclusions in that paper have been criticized by Aja and Rosenberg (1996 = "AR") . Our paper dealt with some issues about which there has been healthy (and sometimes highly charged) debate. Such dialogue no...