ORIGIN OF THE MORPHOLOGY OF SPHERICAL KAOLINITE

Abstract

Electron microscopic investigations of spherical kaolinite artificially produced, by means of Pt-C shadowing, gold decoration replica and lattice imagery techniques have revealed that the spherical morphology is due to radiating columnar growth of kaolinite crystals, and not due to concentric layering of curved platy crystals. Thus spherical kaolinite is regarded as a type of spherulite, which is a representative morphology of crystal aggregations appearing under higher supersaturation conditions.