Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-txr5j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-14T06:48:43.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Clay Diagenesis in the Chesapeake Bay Area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Maurice C. Powers
Maurice C. Powers*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C., USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The rivers of the Chesapeake Bay area carry in suspension predominantly a well formed to degraded illite with minor amounts of kaolin and accessory degraded chlorite. Montmorillonite is rare.

Electron microscope photographs of suspended and bottom sediment clays in the James estuary indicate a decrease in floccular size and an increase in crystal size with increasing salinity.

A chlorite-like clay is forming in the Chesapeake Bay estuaries. Its thermal stability increases with increase in the salinity of the environment and with depth in the sediments. This material seems to arise from the diagenesis of degraded illite in the Chesapeake Bay area, but it has also been observed to result from diagenesis of a montmorillonoid in the Atchafalaya region of the Gulf Coast.

The geochemical relations of chloride, sodium, calcium, potassium, and magnesium in the clays of the James estuary support the hypothesis that chlorite is forming in the estuarine and marine environment.

Type
Article
Information
Clays and Clay Minerals (National Conference on Clays and Clay Minerals) , Volume 2: Publication 327, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, October 15-17, 1953 , February 1953 , pp. 68 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Clay Minerals Society 1953

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Grim, R. E. (1951) The depositional environment of red and green shales: Jour. Sed. Pet., v. 21, p. 226–232.Google Scholar
Grim, R. E., and Johns, W. D. (1953) Study of near shore recent sediments and their environments in the northern Gulf of Mexico: A.P.I. Project 51, Rept. VIII, p. 13–18.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. W. (1952) Salinity distribution and circulation in the Chesapeake Bay estuarine system: Jour. Marine Research, v. 11, p. 106–123.Google Scholar
Rolfe, B. N., and Jeffries, C. D. (1952) A new criterion for weathering in soils: Science, v. 116, p. 599–600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silverman, M., and Whaley, R. C. (1952) Adaptation of the piston coring device to shallow water sampling: Jour. Sed. Pet., v. 22, p. 11–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, G. F. (1951) Vermiculites and some related mixed-layer minerals: In “X-ray identification and crystal structures of clay minerals,” Mineralogical Society of Great Britain Monograph, Chap. 7, p. 199–223.Google Scholar