Secondary clay color

Primary clay, for example kaolin, is colorless, and when such clay is heated to a high temperature it produces white ceramic materials. Most pottery, however, is colored its color is due to the fact that most of it was, and still is, made not from primary but from secondary clay. Secondary clay contains minerals other than clay, and colored metal ions in them endow the pottery with their color. Iron ions (in iron oxides), for example, tend to make pottery yellow, brown, or red, and manganese ions (in pyrolusite, a mineral composed of manganese oxide) make it either dark or black. 

Smectite is the first secondary mineral to form upon rock weathering in the semi-arid to sub-humid tropics. Smectite clay retains most of the ions, notably Ca2+ and Mg2+, released from weathering primary silicates. Iron, present as Fe2+ in primary minerals, is preserved in the smectite crystal lattice as Fe3+. The smectites become unstable as weathering proceeds and basic cations and silica are removed by leaching. Fe3+-compounds however remain in the soil, lending it a reddish color aluminum is retained in kaolinite and A1-oxides. Leached soil components accumulate at poorly drained, lower terrain positions where they precipitate and form new smectitic clays that remain stable as long as the pH is above neutral. Additional circumstances for the dominance of clays are ... 

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