Clay is that size fraction of the soil that consists of particles of less than 2 μm equivalent spherical diameter. The minerals that usually predominate in the clay fraction are termed clay minerals or phyllosilicates (see Clay minerals: silicates ). Clay minerals are hydrous silicates or aluminosilicates, generally secondary, and they commonly form in nature by the alteration or weathering of primary minerals or by crystallization from solutions. The occurrence of clay minerals in soils is due to one of the following three major processes: inheritance, transformation or neoformation.
New techniques of analysis in the last 20 years, especially transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X‐ray microanalysis (EDS) have shown clay mineral formation in considerable detail (Banfield and Eggleton, 1990; Robert and Tessier, 1992; Banfield and Barker, 1994).
Inheritance
Clay minerals that form part of the parent materials of soils are passed...
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Chesworth, W. et al. (2008). Clay Mineral Formation. In: Chesworth, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Soil Science. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3995-9_108
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