CLAY DEFINITION CLARIFICATION: I tried to get this across in the video, but I've been seeing many comments that indicate I didn't do a great job, so I just wanted to say here that CLAY IS BOTH A SIZE AND A COMPOSITION! I state at the beginning of the video that it is defined by size, but if you KEEP watching, I then go on to discuss the fact that only certain compositions of material exist at that size, and these are secondary, layered aluminosilicates, which are what geologists define as 'clay minerals'. However, there are also oxides that can sometimes be clay-sized and are sometimes called pelagic clays becuase they form on the seafloor (in the pelagic zone), but they are not considered 'clay minerals' because they are not aluminosiliates. Why do we make this distinction? Because aluminosilicates have a very specific platy structure and this causes them to behave differently than materials that aren't platy (like certain oxides). But don't worry, I talk ALL about clay structures in the follow up video to this one! ;) Also, I see lots of angry comments because I used fractions & metric, so I just want to say I only did that because the reference I was using did that and I thought it was hilarious haha! So please don't be mad at me, I would never do that for real, but the point here is the actual value doesn't matter, it is just VERY small lol ;) Lastly, I had a typo in the end-screen. Pretend it says Mineralogy Playlist rather than Planetary Science Playlist ;) Thanks! haha
Excellent information I learned a lot. I bet you could choose the best clay to make bricks!!!, I always wanted to make my own bricks. Not to mention you know where the gold, silver, copper, iron, etc is hiding.
Good idea to do a soil science series. Dirt is way cooler than it gets credit for. My son found the orange iron oxide clay layer beneath our garden and figured out how to make little bricks dried in the sun. They're surprisingly hard and sturdy so he built a little border out of them.
Has he tried firing them? Takes more than a kitchen oven. Perhaps a local school or craftsman? Most teachers and artisans melt to hear honest curiosity. Good luck!
Soil and dirt are not the same concept. Soil has organic material in it, and is made of structures of clay, silt and sand, created by that organic material, called aggregates. The meaning of dirt is fully associated with being unclean, not the source and recycling system of all life.
@@SirAlanClive Thank you for the compliment. This is an educational channel after all, so accuracy and etymology are important. I liked out host's definition of dirt as being "soil displaced". I do not know if this comes from a scientific definition but it is a poetic interpretation.
@@geraldfrost4710 See a channel called primitive technology... guy builds everything using primitive tools... makes his own bricks and pots.. fired with wood... and buildings too... and even harvests iron ore and creates metal stuff with it. Very cool channel! cheers! here's his latest video: th-cam.com/video/Gqhxe_pL6Ws/w-d-xo.html
Getting into “wild clay” which involves prospecting useful ingredients of clay bodies for pottery, building and maintaining good relationships with the people plants and critters of that land, and lots of experimenting to make clay bodies and glazes. This is golden! Thank you! So glad to have found this channel. Learning so much.
@@GEOGIRL I wish I could claim originality with that, but I saw that with accompanying photo in a geology text many years ago. I would attribute if I could remember where In saw it. I have had some summer work testing the engineering properties of soils, and a little clay can go a long way as far as affecting those properties. Where I worked had problems with expansive clay made up of bentonite.
Thank you for a fantastic video again! We are making the finishing touches to our geopark in the middle of Sweden that will be opened in June next year. Two weeks ago we were put on the IUGS list of the first 100 geological heritage sites in the world. It is fantastic to see you present all the topics that are represented in our park. I wish you lived a little closer so that we could have you here with us to get people enthusiastic about earth science. Looking forward to your next video!
I just discovered this channel 2 weeks ago and I love it. I need to check out your video on soil. By the way, I grew up on a farm on the Valparaiso moraine in Northwest Indiana. Due to glaciation moraine soils are all mixed up. It is possible to have multiple soil types in one small field. Yeah I'm weird, I love dirt, or more accurately soil.
Came for the cute thumbnail, stayed for the excellent discussion. You have a natural gift for sharing (potentially dry) information with enough charisma to make it palatable -- even interesting! Earned a sub.
Well done. You explained this well. It's a surprisingly complicated topic even though it's just clay lol. Especially when you get into different forms of it, like Kaolinite.
This compelled me to finally look up what pottery clay consists of and how it's classified. There's a lot I don't know but have always wondered at. Totally playing catch up here. The soil at my dad's house in Illinois is heavy with clay and I've always wondered at it's origin and how it is classified as clay verses silt, soil, & sand. I was born and raised in the Pacific being a half island boy so U.S. geology was never really a prominent interest for me until now. I heard tell that everything East of the Mississippi River is buried under several feet of eroded Appalachian mountains where it hasn't been scraped to bedrock by glaciers, forcing me to wonder how big those mountains really got and where it all went. All very intriguing, and for me, a mystery to uncover. Sand and lava has been my forte`. Cuts your feet and gets up in your shorts so it has a way of remaining imminent.
And all those sandy beaches in the coastal plain and Florida beaches. The Appalachian mountains were as high as the Alps, or higher during their uplift.
@@alexander.Rainforest1987 the Appalachians at their peak were on par or greater than the current Himalayas. They are also older than bones which is so weird to think about.
Wow! What a flood of facts … I love it! I’m basically clueless about soils, which is why this presentation is so cool to me. Most of what I learned about clay in the 80s, had to do with deposition in deltas and such. Adios Amigo :)
Thank you for an in-depth discussion on clay. So glad I came upon this video as I wondered about native clay I find while out off roading or hiking versus the clay purchased in pottery stores. Thanks for sharing.
Now I know why the soil here in Cagayan de Oro City Mindanao Philippines is red, and so is the soil in the tropical north of Australia! Also "Down in the west Texas town of El Paso, there lives an amazing Geo Girl"!
Bloody hell Geo Girl, you packed a lot in to that video! There’s a lot of good information that I’d wondered about though not understood before. Thank you.
I've watched a few of your videos and I liked them a lot, but this series on clay is my jam. I'm now a subscriber. You're very good at explaining things! thanks!!
I am a geocacher and from time to time I look for so called Earthcaches and currently am working on creating Earthcaches myself. Your videos are really a great resource. Thanks!
Awesome! I watched this video a year ago and didn’t get much of it. Since then, I’ve spent a year studying geology and I did a field study of a local conservation area which forced me to learn a lot about minerals, in particular aluminosilicates. So, when I watched your video today, I get it. Thank you!
Fascinating and informative. I live where there is an above-average amount of rain year-round, the soil is acidic (pH 5.5 - 6.0), and mostly heavy orange clay with rocks mixed in. Not ideal for growing useful plants but manageable.
@@GEOGIRL always a very telling thing, the type of dirty jokes that amuse people. Soil making you laugh, because its in bags, I doubt i will visit a garden center again without that joke repeating in my head. & i like that.
I remember being struck by how corrosion, which I spent way to much time fighting in the Navy was an electrical circuit phenomenon. I can't help noting that while watching this geology topic involve ions below the surface, and making soils!
My mother taught me to test for clay by wetting the fingers and rubbing a sample between the thumb and forefinger since you can feel particles of one/ten thousand of an inch because of the nerve endings in your fingertips. Clay always felt sort of creamy and smooth. Excellent presentation and review you gave and i will be listening to the rest in the soil series that you have. Potters and ceramicists tend to particularly like the aluminosilicates.
I hated geology in school... mostly my teacher's fault since she couldn't have made her classes any more academically boring. But you, I can watch you all day!
I agree, the teachers have always been the ones that either make or break a class for me. I am glad you find my lectures interesting despite your precious experience though! :)
I remember learning that Montmorillonite and Kaolinite formed at or close to the surface primarily as a result of the weathering of feldspar, mica and amphibole in the presence of water, wind and temperature fluctuations. I've hiked in the hills in Southern California and have seen the weathering process up close. Cliffs made up primarily of feldspar start deteriorating and flaking off and a soft, dirt-like substance replaces them.
Absolutely! I discuss monmorillonite and kaolinite in detail in the next video on clays (clay composition and structure), I can't wait for that one I am a sucker for geochemistry :D But in any case, you are absolutely right those phases form from feldspars, micas, and amphiboles. Have you ever seen when a rock has been weathered in a way that it looks like an onion peeling, those are my favorite! -> see pic of what I mean: media.istockphoto.com/photos/rock-macro-onion-skin-weathering-weathered-stone-texture-picture-id502456826?k=6&m=502456826&s=170667a&w=0&h=l5F_vvgTbXTs9nQ98OiUpS__B9LBxgYG-p9a_QDPEQU=
@@GEOGIRL I love geology in my old age. I studied mathematics when I was a young man, but had a broad education in the sciences - chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, zoology, genetics, botany, etc. I must say that I appreciate the work that you do in preparing these videos and the pleasant manner in which you present them.
As a science nerd and potter i cannot wait for more videos in this series. I would like to know more about the clays formed from various types of basalt since i live on the edge of a volcano which erupted some andesite and later a more maffic dark coloured basalt, and i use clays deposited locally from the erosion of the volcano.
that rocked !!! i learned so much because i didn't know about any of this ... i need to de-specialize more anyway. i need to learn more about the why of soil acidity, and the why of poor or excessive drainage....i knew that, but i didn't know what i needed to know before.
Five star presentation, just fantastic and all the slides can be read on a fone screen, thank you. So when clay is fired in a kiln, it always changes color, and some is better than others. There is really pretty stoneware from asia that is a deep chocolate brown
This is awesome! I really hated the fact that we learned about all of these horizons in school but they were kind of mysterious to me because we never learned what kind of material these horizons are actually made of! I get that it can be kind of overwhelming, but you don't need to remember all of the different molecules and they are mostly variations of silicate anyways so its really not that complicated.
You nutty geologist ! Actually I remember this grain size stuff from schooldays. That was over 5 years ago now, as I am now 64. Thanks for the interesting video !
Cool, I never would have thought I would be interested in a video about silt and clay but you are engaging as always. In the American South where I’m from there are people who actually seek out clay to eat. I understand that white clay is a particularly prized delicacy though I’ve never partaken myself. Good to know that this practice was condoned by an actual scientist 😂.
There are some bad chemicals in SOME clays. Most of the chemistry is benign, and passes straight through. Some of the chemicals are needed by our bodies; because of the small size (better absorption) they are used in dietary supplements. Like eating mushrooms in the wild: (insert metaphor here).
Actually there's a good chance you've eaten clay if you've ever had a really creamy rich milkshake, at least according to one of my university geology professors: he asserted that many fast-food restaurants add Bentonite clay to make milkshakes thicker and creamier.
I'm an amateur geologist that has picked up pottery as a new hobby in the last few months. I'm very interested to see where this series goes! I'd like to see some discussion of how different clay types are used in pottery.
Have you seen Atomic Shrimp's recent videos? He cooked stew in pots he made from local clay dug out of the ground during building work at his friend's house.
@@charleslambert3368 No I haven't. I have pottery-grade soil in my yard, I dug out a chunk and made a couple pots out of it. I don't have a kiln though, and the studio where I'm taking classes won't fire wild clay.
Great stuff young geo gal, a fairdinkum benchmark chronological presentation of the sedimentary origin of one of my own favorite regolith topics, the origin of clay. Well done to you, you rock. Regards Rory, Tasmania..
Great topic, love earth science. Years ago I watched a 48 lecture Great Course called "How the Earth Works" and thought it was great, and have been looking for a more in depth follow up since. Your channel fits the bill nicely. And your presentation is fabulous, at least from my perspective.
SWEET! I've been wanting to know this for many years! I am pretty busy with life, so I keep forgetting to look it up, and you just brought it to me in fine detail! Thank you so much! One of my possible future occupations is as a potter. And or sculptor. I am living in an area that is rich in red clay, and I play with it a bit, filtering out, or settling out everything that is not clay by making a wet slurry, and let it settle into layers. I look forward to your follow up video! I'm going to look through your collection and see if you have made it already. Obviously, I have subscribed, and given you a thumbs up!
It's all about clay, nothing but clay. Very interesting bits unusually. Apart from a normal treatment of geology or paleontology, this is another version with a singular touch. The presenter herself is visibly enjoying the subject (sprinkled laughter is an unequivocal evidence). Very informative & illustrative. No wonder clay is in high demand among elephants or macaws. Size matters. From the very beginning, viewers' attention is firmly caught. She's a knack or two. Clay, sand, & silt ... Looked like a cocking video. Special thanks for geologist's private secret!
This is well done, kid. You've kept the discussion at a comprehensible level without talking down to your audience. I'm sure you'll say somewhere that there is a distinction between clay-size particles (that may or may not be clay) and true clay minerals. A mud formed of mostly silt-size quartz grains would be very diferrent from one of mixed fine sand, silt and clay-sized particles of heterogenous composition. And most of the "soils" we work with out west are formed from transported alluvium and are not (typically) derived in place from bedrock. California's Central Valley soils are mostly sourced from erosion of the ancestral Sierras and are fertile because of mixed rock type sources and the climate is so cooperative with warmth/hot weather and long growing seasons.
I'm going to give this channel a shot. Had a rock collection as a kid (that some idiot sold) but I'll hang out. Super wonky but I'll just have to pay attention. Great presentation!
We should all take a second to appreciate Geo girl's subscriber engagement. She has replied to nearly every comment older than two hours. When this channel has 1 million subs it will become impossible, we are a privelidged group.
Aw you are so sweet to notice! I am trying to keep up, every morning I try and go in and respond to all the new ones but it is becoming slightly more difficult hahaha! Hopefully I can keep this up a bit longer ;)
Deposits build up from the settlements, (sediments) either in moving water columns or at the bottoms of larger water columns which move slowly, such as the bottoms of seas or ocean areas, and most clays are laid from this process, millions of years ago, when that area was near or under oceanside We are talking about BULK clay formations, not simply migratory bio, but layer specific anaerobic bacters, which only lives within a specific area below the silt and muds, nearest the surface of the bottom of the body of water.
In Vermont, the glaciers left behind clay concretions and sand concretions. They are usually rounded or formed into smooth irregular shapes. In Putney/Dummerston,VT near the Rt. 91 turnoff fron Rt 5, the clay concretions are sometimes bicolored compound shapes of brown and grey. In Plainfield, VT there is a sand pit where the concretions are up to a foot in diameter, and you would need to scrub behind your ears after collecting there.
This is really useful to know. If you’re ever curious about early construction tech, clay as a material has been used ubiquitously throughout the world due to its ready availability. It’s pre-fired pliable form can be used to make almost any shape, which meant it was used heavily before more advanced materials like bronze or steel and later plastic. 🤓
A much less invasive way to tell the size of the particles in your sample is to rub it between your fingers. If you can feel individual grains like sugar then the sample has sand in it. If it feels floury it has plenty of silt in it. If you wet it and it feels sticky or slimy, it has clay in it. This can be confirmed by rolling it in a ball after wetting. If it will not hold a shape at all, it is mostly sand. If it can be formed into a ball, but cracks when it is squeezed, then it is predominantly silt. If it forms a ball that deforms but does not crack when squeezed, it is predominantly clay. There is also a similar test called a ribbon test. Ultimately, you can about 2/3 fill a clear, straight-sided jar with it, fill with water with a few spoonfuls of baking soda or laundry powder. Shake very thoroughly until all the particles are separated, then sit it somewhere. The sand is heaviest so settles out within a few minutes, after an hour most of the silt has settled on top of it. After a day or several days, the clay has settled out as well. You can tell when it has finished if the water on top is clear. Any organic material will be floating in the water. The baking soda or whatever alkaline compound you use helps to get the clay out of suspension in the water. Because of it's nanometre size, clay particles have a slight electrical charge on their surface, which - added with the sheer tiny-ness, means it can be suspended by water molecules for a long time. It is also the reason why it is incredibly important in giving soils its fertility - along with the soil biology. The different size particles are often different colours, so you can see the layers of each quite easily. If your jar has straight sides you can then measure the proportions of sand, silt and clay in your sample reasonably accurately, and determine how close it is to being a loam - ideal for growing plants. Loam has roughly equal proportions of the three size grades. The best soil for most food crops is a silty loam, in other words has a slightly higher proportion of silt than the bigger and smaller grades. This soil will have the best water and nutrient retention capacity, while still being free-draining.
A lot of clay here in Phoenix, I managed to make pottery from the sticky mud in the yard. I mixed the soil in water, let it settle, then poured out the water, and the clay settled from that.
I'm in southern New Brunswick, Canada, and there is some nice clay in the creek valley down the road. I got my first small field gathered batch completed this summer. From what I've read, it will do well to season it. I'll try working it after a year. I look forward to gathering more substantial amounts next summer. I'd like to have a good bank of clay by the time my garden is set well enough to afford me the time to make a little kiln.
This brings to mind driving in the rain on wet red clay roads in the 1970s in Georgia (the US state not the European country) and there was a certain point of saturation where you might as well be driving on marbles in oil. Mind's eye can also recall dry days where the roadside plants were all covered with red clay dust.
Thanks so much! This is excellent info! subbed! Tip number 1: Eat rocks and see if they are clay 😁 Organic matter (humic matter) is about 38-42% lipophyllic acid aka fat Microbes that eat rock interact directly with plants and actually mine rocks in the soil at the plan'ts direction through the use of microbial metabolites that the plant produces as exudates. For those who don't know, clay soils are some of the best growing soils due to their high nutrient content locked up in clay colloids. Microbes are excellent at releasing these.
Thas was very interesting. :) I played a lot of Dwarf Fortress and learned a ton of new words (lots of names for stones and soil material) whithout really knowing what they ment. You probably don't know the game, but soil, minerals, stone, and metals play a huge role in it (of course, it is a game about dwarves ;-)). The game world is procedural generated with accurate geology, climate, biomes and so on. Soil layers with sand, loam, silt, and clay are nice to have in the game for growing plants and making glass and pottery. It is nice to have a better understanding of these materials now. It never occured to me, that they are basicallly the same material only with different grain sizes.
Appreciated. I live near the St Austell (Cornwall, UK) china-clay (kaolin) area. No prior knowledge of geology, but am scientist. Your presentation worked great for me. Thanks.
Well done! Quite interesting. I'll never view that bag of potting "soil" the same way again. Example, "You are dirt, do you hear me, you bag of soil!!"
Yep, they are included in the aluminosilicate group and I discuss them and all the other major types of aluminosilicates in my next clay video over clay composition and mineral structure :)
Yesterday I bought my mother a pottery wheel for Christmas, clay must be on our minds. Lol. Thank you for the post. love the videos. Ps. The sound on your videos sound much better.
CLAY DEFINITION CLARIFICATION: I tried to get this across in the video, but I've been seeing many comments that indicate I didn't do a great job, so I just wanted to say here that CLAY IS BOTH A SIZE AND A COMPOSITION! I state at the beginning of the video that it is defined by size, but if you KEEP watching, I then go on to discuss the fact that only certain compositions of material exist at that size, and these are secondary, layered aluminosilicates, which are what geologists define as 'clay minerals'. However, there are also oxides that can sometimes be clay-sized and are sometimes called pelagic clays becuase they form on the seafloor (in the pelagic zone), but they are not considered 'clay minerals' because they are not aluminosiliates. Why do we make this distinction? Because aluminosilicates have a very specific platy structure and this causes them to behave differently than materials that aren't platy (like certain oxides). But don't worry, I talk ALL about clay structures in the follow up video to this one! ;)
Also, I see lots of angry comments because I used fractions & metric, so I just want to say I only did that because the reference I was using did that and I thought it was hilarious haha! So please don't be mad at me, I would never do that for real, but the point here is the actual value doesn't matter, it is just VERY small lol ;)
Lastly, I had a typo in the end-screen. Pretend it says Mineralogy Playlist rather than Planetary Science Playlist ;) Thanks! haha
You also used "loose" for "lose" about 60% of the way through, of course you pronounced it right.
@@davidniemi6553 Haha oops, good catch, at least the point still came across! ;)
I play around with a tractor on a small farm & I noticed patches of extremely sticky natural clay. I wonder how it is formed.
Excellent information I learned a lot. I bet you could choose the best clay to make bricks!!!, I always wanted to make my own bricks. Not to mention you know where the gold, silver, copper, iron, etc is hiding.
You had the camera pointed in the right direction, that has to count for something!
The basics of clays has never been explained to me like this. You make it sound so logical and understandable. Thx.
So glad to hear that :D Thank you!
Good idea to do a soil science series. Dirt is way cooler than it gets credit for. My son found the orange iron oxide clay layer beneath our garden and figured out how to make little bricks dried in the sun. They're surprisingly hard and sturdy so he built a little border out of them.
Wow what a bright kid! Who needs TV when there's clay outside! That's awesome ;D
Has he tried firing them? Takes more than a kitchen oven. Perhaps a local school or craftsman? Most teachers and artisans melt to hear honest curiosity.
Good luck!
Soil and dirt are not the same concept. Soil has organic material in it, and is made of structures of clay, silt and sand, created by that organic material, called aggregates. The meaning of dirt is fully associated with being unclean, not the source and recycling system of all life.
@@SirAlanClive Thank you for the compliment. This is an educational channel after all, so accuracy and etymology are important. I liked out host's definition of dirt as being "soil displaced". I do not know if this comes from a scientific definition but it is a poetic interpretation.
@@geraldfrost4710 See a channel called primitive technology... guy builds everything using primitive tools... makes his own bricks and pots.. fired with wood... and buildings too... and even harvests iron ore and creates metal stuff with it. Very cool channel! cheers! here's his latest video: th-cam.com/video/Gqhxe_pL6Ws/w-d-xo.html
Getting into “wild clay” which involves prospecting useful ingredients of clay bodies for pottery, building and maintaining good relationships with the people plants and critters of that land, and lots of experimenting to make clay bodies and glazes. This is golden! Thank you! So glad to have found this channel. Learning so much.
In order to field test for clay, one must have a taste for knowledge.
Hahaha exactly! ;)
@@GEOGIRL I wish I could claim originality with that, but I saw that with accompanying photo in a geology text many years ago. I would attribute if I could remember where In saw it.
I have had some summer work testing the engineering properties of soils, and a little clay can go a long way as far as affecting those properties.
Where I worked had problems with expansive clay made up of bentonite.
@@andywomack3414 naaaw that's such an honest admission! You can claim it by virtue of time by now surely lol
And no fear of contamination by urban or agricultural pollutants. Or squirrel poop.
I knew an adam womack in fort worth Texas any relation?
Thank you for a fantastic video again! We are making the finishing touches to our geopark in the middle of Sweden that will be opened in June next year. Two weeks ago we were put on the IUGS list of the first 100 geological heritage sites in the world. It is fantastic to see you present all the topics that are represented in our park. I wish you lived a little closer so that we could have you here with us to get people enthusiastic about earth science. Looking forward to your next video!
Congratulations a brand new Geopark for Sweden is fantastic for the people there. 😊✨
thank you for the little clarification on soil versus dirt, nice
I just discovered this channel 2 weeks ago and I love it. I need to check out your video on soil. By the way, I grew up on a farm on the Valparaiso moraine in Northwest Indiana. Due to glaciation moraine soils are all mixed up. It is possible to have multiple soil types in one small field. Yeah I'm weird, I love dirt, or more accurately soil.
Came for the cute thumbnail, stayed for the excellent discussion. You have a natural gift for sharing (potentially dry) information with enough charisma to make it palatable -- even interesting!
Earned a sub.
YOU DID A SUPERB JOB AT EXPLAINING THE GEOLOGY OF CLAYS. YES MA'AM.
Well done. You explained this well. It's a surprisingly complicated topic even though it's just clay lol. Especially when you get into different forms of it, like Kaolinite.
This was the geology lesson that my formation as gardener was missing. Bookmarking it. Thanks.
This compelled me to finally look up what pottery clay consists of and how it's classified. There's a lot I don't know but have always wondered at. Totally playing catch up here. The soil at my dad's house in Illinois is heavy with clay and I've always wondered at it's origin and how it is classified as clay verses silt, soil, & sand. I was born and raised in the Pacific being a half island boy so U.S. geology was never really a prominent interest for me until now. I heard tell that everything East of the Mississippi River is buried under several feet of eroded Appalachian mountains where it hasn't been scraped to bedrock by glaciers, forcing me to wonder how big those mountains really got and where it all went. All very intriguing, and for me, a mystery to uncover. Sand and lava has been my forte`. Cuts your feet and gets up in your shorts so it has a way of remaining imminent.
To the Sea, My friend…
to the open arms of the se-a
And all those sandy beaches in the coastal plain and Florida beaches. The Appalachian mountains were as high as the Alps, or higher during their uplift.
@@alexander.Rainforest1987 the Appalachians at their peak were on par or greater than the current Himalayas. They are also older than bones which is so weird to think about.
I've been discouraged a lot lately and searching for direction in my life. This video is quite helpful! Thank you!
I have watched several videos and read several books on this topic and your explanation is the best that I have come across. Great job, well done. 🙂
Oh my gosh, I feel so honored that you think mine is that good, thank you so much for the kind comment! :D
Wow! What a flood of facts … I love it! I’m basically clueless about soils, which is why this presentation is so cool to me. Most of what I learned about clay in the 80s, had to do with deposition in deltas and such.
Adios Amigo :)
Omg I got my "Ask me about geology" cap! Woo hoo! It's so nice! I love it so much! 😍
Thanks!
“Did you chew it?”
Is a sentence that every geologist has heard from a person that is 100% serious
Thank you for an in-depth discussion on clay. So glad I came upon this video as I wondered about native clay I find while out off roading or hiking versus the clay purchased in pottery stores. Thanks for sharing.
Now I know why the soil here in Cagayan de Oro City Mindanao Philippines is red, and so is the soil in the tropical north of Australia! Also "Down in the west Texas town of El Paso, there lives an amazing Geo Girl"!
Omg Monday morning getting ready for work!! I'll be looking forward to this when I finish! Thank you sooooo so so much!! You are amazing! 💖😍
Your passion is Infectious. Thank you for this video.
Bloody hell Geo Girl, you packed a lot in to that video! There’s a lot of good information that I’d wondered about though not understood before. Thank you.
I've watched a few of your videos and I liked them a lot, but this series on clay is my jam. I'm now a subscriber. You're very good at explaining things! thanks!!
Very interesting and well delivered video.
Thank you for sharing.
I am a geocacher and from time to time I look for so called Earthcaches and currently am working on creating Earthcaches myself. Your videos are really a great resource. Thanks!
What's an earthcache
Awesome! I watched this video a year ago and didn’t get much of it. Since then, I’ve spent a year studying geology and I did a field study of a local conservation area which forced me to learn a lot about minerals, in particular aluminosilicates. So, when I watched your video today, I get it. Thank you!
Fascinating and informative. I live where there is an above-average amount of rain year-round, the soil is acidic (pH 5.5 - 6.0), and mostly heavy orange clay with rocks mixed in. Not ideal for growing useful plants but manageable.
@@TheBirdBrothers No, northern Virginia, which is consistently pretty wet year-round, and wetter than a number of places people think of as rainy.
This is fantastic. Soil is so fascinating. Who knew about clay!
Not many people have the gift to make dirt sound so fascinating.
Ahh yay! This makes me happy! ;D Dirt is AWESOME!
@@GEOGIRL always a very telling thing, the type of dirty jokes that amuse people.
Soil making you laugh, because its in bags, I doubt i will visit a garden center again without that joke repeating in my head. & i like that.
This is fascinating and informative way beyond clay.
Thank you for the enlightenment.
Great video, thank you. So glad I found your TH-cam site
I've been doing a dive into geology vids lately and was just asking myself wtf clay/dirt/soil is. Then found your vid. Thank you!
I remember being struck by how corrosion, which I spent way to much time fighting in the Navy was an electrical circuit phenomenon. I can't help noting that while watching this geology topic involve ions below the surface, and making soils!
My mother taught me to test for clay by wetting the fingers and rubbing a sample between the thumb and forefinger since you can feel particles of one/ten thousand of an inch because of the nerve endings in your fingertips. Clay always felt sort of creamy and smooth. Excellent presentation and review you gave and i will be listening to the rest in the soil series that you have. Potters and ceramicists tend to particularly like the aluminosilicates.
I hated geology in school... mostly my teacher's fault since she couldn't have made her classes any more academically boring. But you, I can watch you all day!
I agree, the teachers have always been the ones that either make or break a class for me. I am glad you find my lectures interesting despite your precious experience though! :)
I remember learning that Montmorillonite and Kaolinite formed at or close to the surface primarily as a result of the weathering of feldspar, mica and amphibole in the presence of water, wind and temperature fluctuations. I've hiked in the hills in Southern California and have seen the weathering process up close. Cliffs made up primarily of feldspar start deteriorating and flaking off and a soft, dirt-like substance replaces them.
Absolutely! I discuss monmorillonite and kaolinite in detail in the next video on clays (clay composition and structure), I can't wait for that one I am a sucker for geochemistry :D But in any case, you are absolutely right those phases form from feldspars, micas, and amphiboles. Have you ever seen when a rock has been weathered in a way that it looks like an onion peeling, those are my favorite! -> see pic of what I mean: media.istockphoto.com/photos/rock-macro-onion-skin-weathering-weathered-stone-texture-picture-id502456826?k=6&m=502456826&s=170667a&w=0&h=l5F_vvgTbXTs9nQ98OiUpS__B9LBxgYG-p9a_QDPEQU=
@@GEOGIRL I love geology in my old age. I studied mathematics when I was a young man, but had a broad education in the sciences - chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, zoology, genetics, botany, etc. I must say that I appreciate the work that you do in preparing these videos and the pleasant manner in which you present them.
@@GEOGIRL I picked one of those up once -- or I should say I picked most of it up; the outer layers spalled off the moment I grabbed it.
As a science nerd and potter i cannot wait for more videos in this series. I would like to know more about the clays formed from various types of basalt since i live on the edge of a volcano which erupted some andesite and later a more maffic dark coloured basalt, and i use clays deposited locally from the erosion of the volcano.
that rocked !!! i learned so much because i didn't know about any of this ... i need to de-specialize more anyway.
i need to learn more about the why of soil acidity, and the why of poor or excessive drainage....i knew that, but i didn't know what i needed to know before.
Just came across this video kind of randomly. Glad I clicked on it. Very good description. Thanks.
Well produced video. Moves along well. Great content. I love your energy!
Thank you!!! I've been looking for a video on this exact topic for years
You're welcome! So glad you found this and enjoyed it ;D
Five star presentation, just fantastic and all the slides can be read on a fone screen, thank you. So when clay is fired in a kiln, it always changes color, and some is better than others. There is really pretty stoneware from asia that is a deep chocolate brown
Great topic , this is essential to locating plants/ gardens.
Thanks ♒
Great summary of clays!
"Clay is a size" and soil versus dirt so feeds my inner pedant. Thank you!
This is awesome! I really hated the fact that we learned about all of these horizons in school but they were kind of mysterious to me because we never learned what kind of material these horizons are actually made of! I get that it can be kind of overwhelming, but you don't need to remember all of the different molecules and they are mostly variations of silicate anyways so its really not that complicated.
You nutty geologist ! Actually I remember this grain size stuff from schooldays. That was over 5 years ago now, as I am now 64. Thanks for the interesting video !
Cool, I never would have thought I would be interested in a video about silt and clay but you are engaging as always. In the American South where I’m from there are people who actually seek out clay to eat. I understand that white clay is a particularly prized delicacy though I’ve never partaken myself. Good to know that this practice was condoned by an actual scientist 😂.
Hahaha Yes, go for it! 😂😂
There are some bad chemicals in SOME clays. Most of the chemistry is benign, and passes straight through. Some of the chemicals are needed by our bodies; because of the small size (better absorption) they are used in dietary supplements.
Like eating mushrooms in the wild: (insert metaphor here).
Actually there's a good chance you've eaten clay if you've ever had a really creamy rich milkshake, at least according to one of my university geology professors: he asserted that many fast-food restaurants add Bentonite clay to make milkshakes thicker and creamier.
The people who crave and eat clay are generally suffering from Pica, and eating the clay just makes the condition worse. It is a form of anemia.
I'm an amateur geologist that has picked up pottery as a new hobby in the last few months. I'm very interested to see where this series goes! I'd like to see some discussion of how different clay types are used in pottery.
Have you seen Atomic Shrimp's recent videos? He cooked stew in pots he made from local clay dug out of the ground during building work at his friend's house.
@@charleslambert3368 No I haven't. I have pottery-grade soil in my yard, I dug out a chunk and made a couple pots out of it. I don't have a kiln though, and the studio where I'm taking classes won't fire wild clay.
Clear and concise, thanks.
Another great vid! The more I watch, the smarter I feel....even if I am now tempted to taste test for grain size!
You gotta try it at least once ;)
totally unfluffy & straight to some serious facts. (new subscriber)
Thank you! Glad you like my to the point lecture style ;)
Love your work! Thank you 💕☺️
Thank you so much! So glad you enjoy my videos ;D
Thanks for the information, And the adorable demeanor making geology interesting, and a little amusing.
Great stuff young geo gal, a fairdinkum benchmark chronological presentation of the sedimentary origin of one of my own favorite regolith topics, the origin of clay. Well done to you, you rock. Regards Rory, Tasmania..
I am so excited to find your video!! I love your channels content. I might be a bit of a 🤓 nerd but that's good with me!
Subscribed! 😊🌟✨
Thanks so much for the comment and for subscribing! I am so glad you love my channel :D
Alas, I finally understand where clay comes from. Thank you !
Great topic, love earth science. Years ago I watched a 48 lecture Great Course called "How the Earth Works" and thought it was great, and have been looking for a more in depth follow up since. Your channel fits the bill nicely. And your presentation is fabulous, at least from my perspective.
SWEET! I've been wanting to know this for many years! I am pretty busy with life, so I keep forgetting to look it up, and you just brought it to me in fine detail! Thank you so much! One of my possible future occupations is as a potter. And or sculptor. I am living in an area that is rich in red clay, and I play with it a bit, filtering out, or settling out everything that is not clay by making a wet slurry, and let it settle into layers. I look forward to your follow up video! I'm going to look through your collection and see if you have made it already.
Obviously, I have subscribed, and given you a thumbs up!
Don't worry, I am interested in more than just clay. I will stick with you to learn more about our wonderful planet!
I see to the right a video about eukaryotes. I am about to devour that one!
New subscriber. At 17:31, you mentioned 'bonding', to be discussed in an upcoming video. Looking forward to your take on van der waals!
Awesome video, awesome teacher/professor! Thanks!
It's all about clay, nothing but clay. Very interesting bits unusually. Apart from a normal treatment of geology or paleontology, this is another version with a singular touch. The presenter herself is visibly enjoying the subject (sprinkled laughter is an unequivocal evidence). Very informative & illustrative. No wonder clay is in high demand among elephants or macaws.
Size matters. From the very beginning, viewers' attention is firmly caught. She's a knack or two. Clay, sand, & silt ... Looked like a cocking video. Special thanks for geologist's private secret!
This is well done, kid. You've kept the discussion at a comprehensible level without talking down to your audience.
I'm sure you'll say somewhere that there is a distinction between clay-size particles (that may or may not be clay) and true clay minerals. A mud formed of mostly silt-size quartz grains would be very diferrent from one of mixed fine sand, silt and clay-sized particles of heterogenous composition.
And most of the "soils" we work with out west are formed from transported alluvium and are not (typically) derived in place from bedrock. California's Central Valley soils are mostly sourced from erosion of the ancestral Sierras and are fertile because of mixed rock type sources and the climate is so cooperative with warmth/hot weather and long growing seasons.
Mind officially blown. Very interesting stuff. Keep up the great work.
I'm going to give this channel a shot. Had a rock collection as a kid (that some idiot sold) but I'll hang out. Super wonky but I'll just have to pay attention. Great presentation!
always wanted the dirt on clay. good video.
Thanks! ;)
This is great. Thank you and best wishes.
Thank you so much! ;D
We should all take a second to appreciate Geo girl's subscriber engagement. She has replied to nearly every comment older than two hours.
When this channel has
1 million subs it will become impossible, we are a privelidged group.
Aw you are so sweet to notice! I am trying to keep up, every morning I try and go in and respond to all the new ones but it is becoming slightly more difficult hahaha! Hopefully I can keep this up a bit longer ;)
Brilliant. . Thank you . . 👍
Deposits build up from the settlements, (sediments) either in moving water columns or at the bottoms of larger water columns which move slowly, such as the bottoms of seas or ocean areas, and most clays are laid from this process, millions of years ago, when that area was near or under oceanside We are talking about BULK clay formations, not simply migratory bio, but layer specific anaerobic bacters, which only lives within a specific area below the silt and muds, nearest the surface of the bottom of the body of water.
In Vermont, the glaciers left behind clay concretions and sand concretions. They are usually rounded or formed into smooth irregular shapes. In Putney/Dummerston,VT near the Rt. 91 turnoff fron Rt 5, the clay concretions are sometimes bicolored compound shapes of brown and grey. In Plainfield, VT there is a sand pit where the concretions are up to a foot in diameter, and you would need to scrub behind your ears after collecting there.
This is really useful to know. If you’re ever curious about early construction tech, clay as a material has been used ubiquitously throughout the world due to its ready availability. It’s pre-fired pliable form can be used to make almost any shape, which meant it was used heavily before more advanced materials like bronze or steel and later plastic. 🤓
Another great video!
A much less invasive way to tell the size of the particles in your sample is to rub it between your fingers. If you can feel individual grains like sugar then the sample has sand in it. If it feels floury it has plenty of silt in it. If you wet it and it feels sticky or slimy, it has clay in it. This can be confirmed by rolling it in a ball after wetting. If it will not hold a shape at all, it is mostly sand. If it can be formed into a ball, but cracks when it is squeezed, then it is predominantly silt. If it forms a ball that deforms but does not crack when squeezed, it is predominantly clay. There is also a similar test called a ribbon test. Ultimately, you can about 2/3 fill a clear, straight-sided jar with it, fill with water with a few spoonfuls of baking soda or laundry powder. Shake very thoroughly until all the particles are separated, then sit it somewhere. The sand is heaviest so settles out within a few minutes, after an hour most of the silt has settled on top of it. After a day or several days, the clay has settled out as well. You can tell when it has finished if the water on top is clear. Any organic material will be floating in the water. The baking soda or whatever alkaline compound you use helps to get the clay out of suspension in the water. Because of it's nanometre size, clay particles have a slight electrical charge on their surface, which - added with the sheer tiny-ness, means it can be suspended by water molecules for a long time. It is also the reason why it is incredibly important in giving soils its fertility - along with the soil biology.
The different size particles are often different colours, so you can see the layers of each quite easily. If your jar has straight sides you can then measure the proportions of sand, silt and clay in your sample reasonably accurately, and determine how close it is to being a loam - ideal for growing plants. Loam has roughly equal proportions of the three size grades. The best soil for most food crops is a silty loam, in other words has a slightly higher proportion of silt than the bigger and smaller grades. This soil will have the best water and nutrient retention capacity, while still being free-draining.
What a great lecture.
Thank you! :)
A lot of clay here in Phoenix, I managed to make pottery from the sticky mud in the yard. I mixed the soil in water, let it settle, then poured out the water, and the clay settled from that.
I'm in southern New Brunswick, Canada, and there is some nice clay in the creek valley down the road.
I got my first small field gathered batch completed this summer.
From what I've read, it will do well to season it.
I'll try working it after a year.
I look forward to gathering more substantial amounts next summer.
I'd like to have a good bank of clay by the time my garden is set well enough to afford me the time to make a little kiln.
This brings to mind driving in the rain on wet red clay roads in the 1970s in Georgia (the US state not the European country) and there was a certain point of saturation where you might as well be driving on marbles in oil. Mind's eye can also recall dry days where the roadside plants were all covered with red clay dust.
Thanks so much! This is excellent info! subbed!
Tip number 1: Eat rocks and see if they are clay 😁
Organic matter (humic matter) is about 38-42% lipophyllic acid aka fat
Microbes that eat rock interact directly with plants and actually mine rocks in the soil at the plan'ts direction through the use of microbial metabolites that the plant produces as exudates.
For those who don't know, clay soils are some of the best growing soils due to their high nutrient content locked up in clay colloids. Microbes are excellent at releasing these.
Thas was very interesting. :)
I played a lot of Dwarf Fortress and learned a ton of new words (lots of names for stones and soil material) whithout really knowing what they ment.
You probably don't know the game, but soil, minerals, stone, and metals play a huge role in it (of course, it is a game about dwarves ;-)). The game world is procedural generated with accurate geology, climate, biomes and so on.
Soil layers with sand, loam, silt, and clay are nice to have in the game for growing plants and making glass and pottery.
It is nice to have a better understanding of these materials now. It never occured to me, that they are basicallly the same material only with different grain sizes.
Appreciated. I live near the St Austell (Cornwall, UK) china-clay (kaolin) area. No prior knowledge of geology, but am scientist. Your presentation worked great for me. Thanks.
Yay a video about clay that's not clear as mud.. Good video and 1/256 of 1mm is awesome
Greetings from the BIG SKY. Paddlefishing in bentonite clay is a learning lesson.
Very nice...💖 excellent video... very well done geo girl...✨✨✨
Thank you ;)
@@GEOGIRL most welcome 🙃🙃✨✨
thanks this was informative.
she has to be the prettiest geography teacher everrrrrr.....
So amazing!
Simply awesome.
Well done! Quite interesting. I'll never view that bag of potting "soil" the same way again. Example, "You are dirt, do you hear me, you bag of soil!!"
Fantastic clays and where to find them.
This is the excuse I've been looking for to satisfy my neighbors curiosity. Thanks GeoGirl!
Haha you are so very welcome! ;D
I'm in the mountains of north Carolina. we have the lovely gray clay, used in pottery making. B. B. Craig made pottery around here for along time.
What a great video, thank you
Thank you.
Are not the Micas also an important component in Clays ?
Yep, they are included in the aluminosilicate group and I discuss them and all the other major types of aluminosilicates in my next clay video over clay composition and mineral structure :)
@@GEOGIRL Great, Look forward to seeing it. I like your videos. Cheers.
Yesterday I bought my mother a pottery wheel for Christmas, clay must be on our minds. Lol. Thank you for the post. love the videos.
Ps. The sound on your videos sound much better.
Oh how nice! Now you can tell her all about clay minerals when you give it to her! haha ;)
Subbed after 100 seconds. Looking forward to more, more , more.
THANK YOU GEO GURL
I had a text book in college with a picture of a person nibbling a bit of sediment. The caption began "Geologist hungry for knowledge..." 😂
LOL that's hilarious!