A method of clay mineral sample preparation for electron microprobe analysis has been developed in which a film of clay plus 10-12 wt. % colloidal graphite is deposited on a porous ceramic disc using a specially designed suction device. Correction procedures are used to obtain quantitative elemental analyses representing the average chemical composition of the prepared sample. A statistical tec...

Smectites or swelling clay minerals are naturally occurring nanomaterials that can be fully delaminated to elementary clay mineral platelets in dilute aqueous dispersion. This review article gives an overview of the recent progress on how the elementary clay mineral platelets can be reorganized in monolayered or multilayered hybrid nanofilms by layer-by-layer assembly or the Langmuir-Blodgett t...

-A method of clay mineral sample preparation for electron microprobe analysis has been developed in which a film of clay plus 10-12 wt. % colloidal graphite is deposited on a porous ceramic disc using a specially designed suction device. Correction procedures are used to obtain quantitative elemental analyses representing the average chemical composition of the prepared sample. A statistical te...

Mineral dust supplied to remote ocean regions stimulates phytoplankton growth through delivery of micronutrients, notably iron (Fe). Although attention is usually paid to Fe (hydr)oxides as major sources of available Fe, Fe-bearing clay minerals are typically the dominant phase in mineral dust. The mineralogy and chemistry of clay minerals in dust particles, however, are largely unknown. We con...

Clay mineral-containing nanocomposite hydrogels have been proven to have exceptional composition, properties, and applications, and consequently have attracted a significant amount of research effort over the past few years. The objective of this paper is to summarize and evaluate scientific advances in clay mineral-containing nanocomposite hydrogels in terms of their specific preparation, form...

Clay minerals are layer type aluminosilicates that figure in terrestrial biogeochemical cycles, in the buffering capacity of the oceans, and in the containment of toxic waste materials. They are also used as lubricants in petroleum extraction and as industrial catalysts for the synthesis of many organic compounds. These applications derive fundamentally from the colloidal size and permanent str...

The purpose of this study is to understand mineral diagenesis authigenic mineral and the effect of climate on mineral of Pleistocene-Holocene sediment deposits in the Southern Kenya Rift. Lake Magadi unique geologic settings are characterized by extreme alkalinity and high silica activities. The mineralogical analysis was achieved by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM...

An enigmatic stepwise increase in oxygen in the late Precambrian is widely considered a prerequisite for the expansion of animal life. Accumulation of oxygen requires organic matter burial in sediments, which is largely controlled by the sheltering or preservational effects of detrital clay minerals in modern marine continental margin depocenters. Here, we show mineralogical and geochemical evi...

The sequestration of carbon and nitrogen by clay-sized particles in soils is well established, and clay content or mineral surface area has been used to estimate the sequestration potential of soils. Here, via incubation of a sieved (<2 mm) topsoil with labelled litter, we find that only some of the clay-sized surfaces bind organic matter (OM). Surprisingly, <19% of the visible mineral areas sh...

-The addition of a 10% talc internal standard to North Pacific sediments allows the relative abundances of clay minerals to be determined both accurately and precisely by X-ray powder diffractometry. Linear programming can be used to generate factors for converting talc-normalized peak areas to weight percentages; hence, absolute clay-mineral abundances can be estimated. This procedure minimize...