Dear all,
I'm wondering about the location of Si-tetrahedra in any silicate grain which includes units of Si tetrahedra and metal-octahedra . For 2:1 clay minerals, metal-octahedra should be enclosed by Si tetrahedra; therefore, one would expect that Si-tetrahedra can accumulate at the outer surfaces of clay grains. However, for other silicate minerals, I cannot make such a deduction.
Would you please give me any suggestion regarding if Si-tetrahedra can accumulate on the outer surface of silicate grains ?
Thank you very much for your interest and contribution.
Clay minerals are the phyllosilicate(sheet-like structure). So we can make a deduction on the ration of 1:1 in Kaolinite and 2:1 others. But in case of another mineral like quartz, we have networking structure(tectosilicate). So, we can not make it out.
Let's consider an isolated grain which only consists of a silicate mineral. Could we say that the outer surface of this grain could be rich in Si-tetrahedra ?