Diagenetic and Paleoenvironmental Significance of Clay Minerals
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Clays and Engineered Mineral Materials".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 83
Special Issue Editors
Interests: petrophysics; offshore drilling; formation evaluation; oilfield; well logging; petroleum geology
Interests: geology and geochemistry of clays; special clays applications; sepiolite–palygorskite; bentonite; talc–kerolite; clays and health; mineral characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Clay minerals, fine-grained silicate minerals with a layered structure, play a crucial role in sedimentary rocks and provide valuable insights into provenance and sediment transport, weathering and diagenetic processes, paleoenvironmental conditions, and even biological mediation.
Detrital clay minerals, generated by weathering, are transported and deposited, becoming susceptible to a series of diagenetic processes that imprint physical and chemical changes in sedimentary environments. On the other hand, authigenic clay minerals form in situ through various processes, such as soil formation, sedimentary diagenesis, metamorphic and hydrothermal processes, or direct precipitation from saturated solutions. Thus, the significance of clay minerals in diagenetic and paleoenvironmental contexts is multifaceted, reflecting their sensitivity to physical and chemical changes in sedimentary environments and their role in recording geological processes.
Overall, clay minerals are valuable tools for reconstructing the diagenetic history and paleoenvironmental conditions. Their transformations and assemblages provide insights into the thermal, chemical, and mechanical processes that have affected sediments over geological time, with significant environmental and economic implications.
This Special Issue aims to publish papers that provide advances and a comprehensive overview of the mineralogy, geochemistry, and applications of clay minerals as proxies for paleoenvironmental and diagenetic processes.
We look forward to receiving your outstanding contributions.
Dr. Paulo R.A. Netto
Prof. Dr. Manuel Pozo Rodríguez
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- clay minerals
- authigenesis
- diagenesis
- paleoenvironment
- paleoclimate
- weathering
- sedimentary basins
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