Iron content, illite-glauconite

Figure 16. Alkali weight percent versus total iron content (FeO + Fe 0.) of il.lites (ferric illites included) shown by circles and of glauconites shown by triangles (Velde and Odin, 1976).

One should notice the possibility of producing single-phase illite materials by the same type of process. If, for reasons unknown at the moment, the path of chemical change leads to aluminous illite instead of iron glauconite, i.e., parallel to the K axis with low initial iron content, one could produce single phase illite or mixed layered mineral assemblage. These are apparently rare, but such an explanation could be used to explain the illite and mixed layered mono-mineral layers of "metabentonite" deposits which cannot be explained as recrystallization of an eruptive rock. Mono-mineral layers in carbonate rock the so called... 

Divalent iron is considerably more abundant in glauconite than in illite and montmorillonite although the Mg content of glauconite is similar to that of mont-morillonite. Octahedral Fe3+ is five times more abundant in glauconite than in illite and montmorillonite, and octahedral A1 is less than one-third as abundant. The total number of trivalent ions in the octahedral position averages 1.45 as compared to 1.76 for montmorillonite and 1.68 for illite. The distribution of total trivalent ions in the octahedral sheet of glauconites is approximately normal (Fig.5). Reported values ranged from 1.15 to 1.89 however, as with the A1 2 1 clays, there is a deficiency of values less than 1.30. 

Figure 17. Proposed phase relations where K is a mobile component and Al, Fe are immobile components at about 20°C and several atmosphere water pressure for aluminous and ferric-ferrous mica-smectite minerals. Symbols are as follows I illite G = non-expanding glauconite Ox = iron oxide Kaol = kaolinlte Mo montmorillonite smectite N nontronitic smectite MLAL aluminous illite-smectite interlayered minerals Mlpe = iron-rich glauconite mica-smectite interlayered mineral. Dashed lines 1, 2, and 3 indicate the path three different starting materials might take during the process of glauconitization. The process involves increase of potassium content and the attainment of an iron-rich octahedral layer in a mica structure.

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