KAOLIN, BALL CLAY, OTHER CLAYS AND SHALE  
     
  Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired. Clay deposits are mostly composed of clay minerals (phyllosilicate minerals), minerals which impart plasticity and harden when fired and/or dried, and variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure by polar attraction. Organic materials which do not impart plasticity may also be a part of clay deposits.

Clay minerals are typically formed over long periods of time by the gradual chemical weathering of rocks (usually silicate-bearing) by low concentrations of carbonic acid and other diluted solvents. These solvents (usually acidic) migrate through the weathering rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the weathering process, some clay minerals are formed by hydrothermal activity. Clay deposits may be formed in place as residual deposits, but thick deposits usually are formed as the result of a secondary sedimentary deposition process after they have been eroded and transported from their original location of formation. Clay deposits are typically associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lake and marine deposits.

 
     
  Kaolinite is a clay mineral with the chemical composition Al2Si2O5(OH)4. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina octahedra . Rocks that are rich in kaolinite are known as china clay or kaolin. Kaolinite is one of the most common minerals; it is mined, as kaolin, in Brazil, France, United Kingdom, Germany, India, Australia, Korea , the People’s Republic of China, and the USA. Kaolinite clay occurs in abundance in soils that have formed from the chemical weathering of rocks in hot, moist climates – for example in tropical rainforest areas. Comparing soils along a gradient towards progressively cooler or drier climates, the proportion of kaolonite decreases, while the proprtion of other clay minerals such as illite (in cooler climates) or smectite (in drier climates) increases. Such climatically-related differences in clay mineral content are often used to infer changes in climates in the geological past, where ancient soils have been buried and preserved.  
     
  Ball clays are kaolinitic sedimentary clays, that commonly consists of 20-80% kaolinite, 10-25% mica, 6-65% quartz. Localized seams in the same deposit have variations in composition, including the content of the amount of major minerals, accessory minerals and the carbonaceous materials such as lignite. They are fine-grained and plastic in nature.

Ball clays are mined in many areas of the world including parts of the Eastern United States and Dorset & Devon in England.[1] Together with other materials they are common raw materials for many ceramic articles, where their primary roles is to either to impart plasticity or to aid rheological stability during the shaping processes.

 
     
  Shale (also called mudstone) is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clay minerals or muds. It is characterized by thin laminae breaking with an irregular curving fracture, often splintery and usually parallel to the often-indistinguishable bedding plane. This property is called fissility. Non-fissile rocks of similar composition but made of particles smaller than 1/16 mm are described as mudstones. Rocks with similar particle sizes but with less clay and therefore grittier are siltstones. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock.

The process in the rock cycle which forms shale is compaction. The fine particles that compose shale can remain in water long after the larger and denser particles of sand have deposited. Shales are typically deposited in very slow moving water and are often found in lake and lagoonal deposits, in river deltas, on floodplains and offshore of beach sands. They can also be deposited on the continental shelf, in relatively deep, quiet water.

‘Black shales’ are dark, as a result of being especially rich in unoxidized carbon. Common in some Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata, black shales were deposited in anoxic, reducing environments, such as in stagnant water columns.

Fossils, animal tracks/burrows and even raindrop impact craters are sometimes preserved on shale bedding surfaces. Shales may also contain concretions.

Shales that are subject to heat and pressure alter into a hard, fissile, metamorphic rock known as slate, which is often used in building construction.