A smectite formed by weathering of mica in a laterite pallid zone at Boddington, Western Australia has been investigated by analytical electron microscopy. The evidence suggests that this mineral has the chemical composition and swelling properties of ideal beidellite but is anomalous in containing abundant non-exchangeable K. This K balances half of the layer charge that arises mostly from tetrahedral substitution of Al3+for Si4+, with the K+occupying one sixth of the sites occupied by K in mica.
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Singh et al. (1991) studied this question.
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