Tertiary iron sand beds, 1 to 2mm thick, occur intercalated within tuff or tuffaceous sediments in Niiharu-mura, Tone-gun, Gumma Prefecture. It is worthy of notice that clear prismatic crystals of zircon (0.1-0.5mm) and fragments of allanite crystal (0.1-0.5mm) are contained in the sand beds. Sand grains are cemented by green clay material, which is largely composed of extremely fine particles accompanied by fibrous flakes, showing mean refractive indices of 1.62-1.63 and strong pleochroism (bluish green to pale yellow). The green material has the following chemical composition: SiO
2 34.95, % Al
2O
3 22.34, Fe
2O
3 6.95, FeO 16.09, TiO
2 0.99, MnO 0.13, CaO 1.54, MgO 1.31, Na
2O 0.45, K
2O 1.85, H
2O (-) 5.92, H
2O (+) 7.77, total 100.29%. X-ray investigation suggests that the material is composed of very complex mixture of clay minerals:(1) chlorite (probably an iron-rich sort), having structure composed of an interstratified combination of 7Å and 14Å layers;(2) hydrous complex of mica clay minerals (probably iron-rich sorts). Chemical characteristics of each mineral were not determined in detail because of dfficulty in separating them.
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