Nanostructural Effects in Iron Oxide Silicate Materials of the Earth’s Crust

Abstract

Geomechanical dispersion processes of microcrystalline iron aluminosilicate in the rocks of the Earth’s crust, aided by traces of water, were studied by theoretical, physicochemical, and rheological investigation methods. Such processes are being followed by nanochemical reactions in nanocracks and in structural rock defects, with subsequent nano- and microstructural dispersion transformations due to active crack formation. At first, it was shown that crack formation can be followed by microseismic catastrophic phenomena, or while drilling – by an increase of many orders in the penetration speed of water and aqueous solutions from depths into the upper layers of the Earth’s surface. It was indicated that such processes have a negative influence on the environment. The methods for preventing the phenomena and processes considered have been discussed. Physical, physicochemical, colloid-chemical, biocolloid, and geochemical models of nanostructural processes were shown. The latter were used for a mechanical explanation of the secondary interphase contact interactions of colloid and nanoparticles of mineral dispersions that were formed because of the dispersal of the primary rock of the Earth’s crust. Contact interactions in dispersions are being followed by the formation of phase contacts between microparticles aided by nanoclusters and nanoparticles of iron and silicon hydroxides, which are being transformed owing to nanostructural and nanochemical processing, including biogeocenosis. Nanostructural reasons for the change in the rheological properties of sediments and soil under conditions of solid iron aluminum silicate rock dispersion are considered. The conditions for establishing, for the first time, the phenomenon of an ultra-anomaly of dispersion viscosity and possibilities for its practical application have been considered too.