Plainsman A2 ball clay. In spite of three times the normal rainfall this summer, its natural high impermeability made it shed almost all of the water. But there is a back story. When mined, this clay was quite wet, about 10% moisture - some of the lumps are microwave-oven-sized! The outer ones dried over a period of weeks and, in the process, fractured down to what you see here. But the inner section of the pile takes years to dry out. By now it has broken down so fine that a completely dry sample put into water will slake in minutes to produce a smooth slurry. We can thus say that the pile has been "weathered".
| Glossary |
Permeability
In ceramics, the permeability of clay slurries and plastics determines the rate as which water can move through the matrix |
| Glossary | Weathering of Clays |
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