Book DescriptionHere is a comprehensive and up to-do-date presentation of the origins, and properties of clay minerals at the Earth´s surface. The text reviews the relatively simple laws that govern the chemical or isotopic composition and the crystalline structure of clays, and then discusses their genesis and alteration. Concluding chapters show that clay minerals can form in variety of different environments: meteorites, lavas, subduction zones, among others.This book is about the most complete work on the subject of clay minerals thus far conceived. Its scope is one of basics to general principles to use in real geologic situations. In principle any student, advanced student or casual researcher, should be able to find an answer to almost any question posed. The breadth of knowledge presented is truly impressive.This presentation is especially important at present when the study of the most abundant minerals found near the Earth’s surface, clays, appears to find disfavour with students and Universities. In fact we have never before needed such an encyclopaedicwork to strengthen the discipline.At presentwhenEarth sciences are slowing in popularity, the need for a precise and general education in the study of clay minerals is greater than ever before. Curiously the study of the environment, those materials found in the sphere of biological activity, is more relevant than ever. The natural progress of human activity through the age of science and then industrial activity up to the present stage of the post-industrial era has been marked by an increasing use of the Earth’s surface resources. The steady increase of the human population has called upon the natural resources of the surface in a non-linear manner. In the pre-industrial era agriculture and industry was concerned with the basic subsistence of populations. In good years there was enough to eat and in bad ones not enough. The means of obtaining this production did not draw upon the natural mineral riches of the surface to any great extent. Animals were the major non-human motor force, and iron was only a subsidiary part of the production mechanism.Even in cities most of the means of heating remained as the natural, renewable sources of wood. This of course has changed greatly in the last 150 years. Today not only the soil of the planet is solicited to produce more than subsistence for a vastly increased population but the desires of these populations tomove about has drawn on the buried resources to respond to the high energy needs of motor transportation and total comfort heating. Skiing on the top of a mountain in January is the epitome of the triumph of modern man over the elements where an enormous use of energy and natural resources is used to gratify a desire for exotic experiences. These needs of comfort, abundance and pleasure draw on the natural equilibrium of the Earth’s surface.Clay mineralogy is then the study of the basis of the natural riches found in most surface layers of the Earth. Application of the accumulated knowledge about these fundamental portions of our environment will allow us to searchProduct Details Hardcover: 485 pages Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (May 24, 2005) Language: English ISBN-10: 3540216677 ISBN-13: 978-3540216674 Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches