Muscovite weathering

RICH (C.I.), 1958. Muscovite weathering in a soil developed in the Virginia Piedmont. Clays and Clay Min. 5, 203-213. 

Rich, C. I., 1956. Muscovite weathering in Virginia piedmont soil. Proc. 5th Nat. Conf. Clays Clay Min. 203. 

A possible chemical weathering process of two primary minerals, muscovite and biotite, and their varions mineral products is presented in Fig. 2.1. 

Fig. 2.1 Possible chemical weathering pathways of muscovite and biotite...

GER analysis incorporating element combinations designed to reflect the main minerals of the unaltered, altered and weathered rocks reveals clear separation of these different compositions and explains the mineralogical changes during alteration (Fig. 4). Unaltered shale compositions cluster toward the muscovite/ankerite node of the... 

Figure 47. Displacements in composition-temperature space are indicated for the weathering process and diagenesis or epimetamorphism. The simplified system muscovite-pyrophyllite is used to represent these processes in acidic or argillaceous rocks and sediments. I = mica or illite ...

The Hostrock and Backfill Material. Most crystalline igneous rocks, including granite and gneiss, are composed of a comparatively small number of rock forming silicate minerals like quartz, feldspars (albite, microcline, anorthite etc.) micas (biotite, muscovite) and sometimes pyroxenes, amphiboles, olivine and others. Besides, there is a rather limited number of common accessory minerals like magnetite, hematite, pyrite, fluorite, apatite, cal cite and others. Moreover, the weathering and alteration products (clay minerals etc.) from these major constituents of the rock would be present, especially on water exposed surfaces in cracks and fissures. 

Radoslovich (1963b) has shown that when Na+ ions replace K+ ions in muscovite, the dimension of the b-axis is increased. This requires additional flattening and rotation of the silica and alumina tetrahedra. This suggests that the amount of Na+ that can be tolerated by the mica structure increases with temperature the increased thermal motions would allow the structure to accommodate local strains more readily. Thus, little Na+ would be expected in low-temperature illites. In addition, Na would leach out more readily than the K and any illite that had been through the weathering stage would not retain much of its Na. 

Most of the chlorite-like material formed in soils is dioctahedral rather than trioctahedral. In the process of weathering, illite and muscovite are stripped of their potassium and water enters between the layers. In these minerals and in montmoril-lonites and vermiculites, hydroxides are precipitated in the interlayer positions to form a chlorite-like mineral (Rich and Obenshain, 1955 Klages and White, 1957 Brydon et al., 1961 Jackson, 1963 Quigley and Martin, 1963 Rich, 1968). Al(OH)3 and Fe(OH)3 are likely to be precipitated in an acid to mildly basic environments and Mg(OH)2 in a basic environment. The gibbsite sheets in the soil chlorites are seldom complete and the material resembles a mixed-layer chlorite-vermiculite. The gibbsite may occur between some layers and not between others or may occur as islands separated by water molecules. 

Vermiculite and vermiculite layers interstratified with mica and chlorite layers are quite common in soils where weathering is not overly aggressive. (A few references are Walker, 1949 Brown, 1953 Van der Marel, 1954 Hathaway, 1955 Droste, 1956 Rich, 1958 Weaver, 1958 Gjems, 1963 Millot and Camez, 1963 Barshad and Kishk, 1969.) Most of these clays are formed by the removal of K from the biotite, muscovite and illite and the brucite sheet from chlorite. This is accompanied by the oxidation of much of the iron in the 2 1 layer. Walker (1949) has described a trioctahedral soil vermiculite from Scotland formed from biotite however, most of the described samples are dioctahedral. Biotite and chlorite with a relatively high iron content weather more easily than the related iron-poor dioctahedral 2 1 clays and under similar weathering conditions are more apt to alter to a 1 1 clay or possibly assume a dioctahedral structure. 

Clauer N. (1981) Strontium and argon isotopes in naturally weathered biotite, muscovite, and feldspars. Chem. Geol. 31, 325-334. 

Forster (1961, 1963) reported a similar release and uptake of K by the mycelium of A. niger and a variety of other soil fungi when incubated with orthoclase and oligoclase. Weed et al. (1969) demonstrated that fungi weathered biotite, muscovite and phlogopite to vermiculite by acting as a sink for the K released from these minerals. Wheat plants apparently function in this manner during the alteration of biotite to vermiculite (Mortland etal., 1956). 

The rates of dissolution of carbonates and aluminosilicates as a function of pH are generalized in Fig. 2.11. Calcite and dolomite dissolution rates are generally 10 to 1 O -fold faster than rates for the silicates and decrease with pH up to saturation with the carbonates, usually between pH 8 and 10. Dissolution rates among the silicates range widely and are greatest for rapidly weathered minerals such as nepheline and olivine and slowest for quartz, muscovite (illite) and kaolinite, important products of chemical weathering in soils, discussed in more detail in Chap. 7. 

Figure 7.1 Goldich s sequence of increasing weatherability of common minerals (cf. Loughnan 1969 Faure 1991). In parentheses are the lifetimes in years from Table 7.1, assuming olivine = forsterite, augite = diopside, hornblende = tremolite, Ca-plagioclase = anorthite, Na-plagioclase = albite, K-feldspar = microcline, and the stability of muscovite is comparable to that of the related clay, illite.

The formation and survival of unstable or metastable micas and clays in sediments and soils at low temperatures reflects kinetic as well as thermodynamic factors. First, the rates of reactions involving solid-aqueous and especially solid-solid transformations in dilute solutions are very slow at low temperatures (most natural waters are dilute )- The slow kinetics of clay transformations reflects small differences in free energy between stable and metastable clays. Also, the occurrence of specific clays is related to the chemistry and crystal structure of source minerals. Thus, illite often results from the weathering of muscovite, and vermiculite results from the weathering of biotite (cf. Drever 1988), consistent with the similar chemistries and structures of these pairs of T 0 T minerals. 

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