Kaolinite is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2Si2O54. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one "tetrahedral" sheet of silicate tetrahedra linked to one "octahedral" sheet of aluminat
Kaolinite from Twiggs County in Georgia in USA
Kaolinite structure, showing the interlayer hydrogen bonds
Kaolin mine in Czech Republic
A kaolin processing plant
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals. Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as
Kaolinite
…side, and another such sheet through hydrogen bonds on the other side. Kaolinite is a soft, earthy, usually white, mineral (dioctahedral phyllosilicate clay), produced by the chemical weathering of aluminium silicate minerals like feldspar. It has a low shrink–swell capacity and a low cation-exchange capacity…
Boulder clay cliff south of Withernsea, England
A 23,500 times magnified electron micrograph of smectite clay
Italian and African-American clay miners in mine shaft, 1910
Clay layers in a construction site in Auckland, New Zealand. Dry clay is normally much more stable than sand in excavations.