Linus Pauling described electronegativity as “the power of an atom in a molecule to attract electrons to itself.” Basically, the electronegativity of an atom is a relative value of that atom’s ability to attract electron density toward itself when it bonds to another atom.
Electronegativity was originally proposed by Linus Carl Pauling. Pauling was born on February 28, 1901, in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Throughout his childhood he excelled academically.
Oxygen is the 2nd most electronegative element. When you examine a periodic table, you will find that (excluding the noble gases) the electronegativity values tend to increase as you go to the right and up. The reverse statement is that the values tend to decrease going down and to the left.
Electronegativity is a measure of the tendency of an atom to attract a bonding pair of electrons. The Pauling scale is the most commonly used. Fluorine (the most electronegative element) is assigned a value of 4.0, and values range down to cesium and francium which are the least electronegative at 0.7.
The most important among the weather resisting primary minerals is quartz. Most of it remains in soils as gravel, sand, and silt, but some may be slowly dissolved under aggressive tropical environments. Most of the minerals of weathering and their newly formed specie come from only two types: 1. Iron and aluminum hydroxides, the iron being amorphous and the aluminum being as in kaolinitic clays flaky, soft, microcrystalline in structure that behaves naturally as an electronegative colloid.
Mineral clays are classified by their chemical and crystallographic characteristics. Clays with equal amounts of silica and alumina belong to the kaolinite group:
They are found to be:
- Physically and chemically relatively inert with low cation exchange (CEC)
- Characteristic as rather poor soils
In sharp contrast California Clays labelled as impure Kaolin since the late 19th century because they exceed the perfect 50/50 ratio of pure kaolinite are now recognized as industrially significant if they are silica rich, i.e. 2 or more Si: 1 Al. Such clay minerals are considerably more active right out of the ground, once their moisture content is released. When these clays are mixed with significant amounts of calcium and magnesium they become among the finest, longest lasting enriched soils on the planet.
Weathered complexes containing metal hydrates of siicon, iron and aluminum such as those found on the Kelsey Ranch, Merced/Mariposa County, and the Sears Clay Deposit of Tulare County, California are perfect, clean precursors to chemical catalysts because naturally they come out of the ground being capable of becoming with little beneficiation cost an unstable mineral gel. They are particularly abundant in the andosol class of soils derived from recently weathered vitreous rocks created by the Sierra Nevada uplift.
The water regime within the soil mantle is directly dependent upon the climate and local topography (relief), influences rates and amounts of transport and therefore affects the available ions for polymerization into secondary minerals. When the water balance, expressed as rainfall minus potential evapotranspiration is low, the movement of water through the soil mantle is restricted with a consequent decrease in amounts of soluble elements. However, free silica at the nano size level readily recombines with aluminum to form kaolinite. Where there is a large amount of rainfall and over evapotranspiration, a silica deficit develops yielding an alumina rich soil. Where drainage water tends to accumulate, as in low lying areas, the increased concentration of free silica and cations facilitates the formation of montmorillonite.
Most of the rocks found on the Kelsey ranch are in the form of natural classified gravels particularly high in durable silica. There has been natural selection by water, leaving only the most durable, longest lasting, weather resistant specie easily suited for reconfiguring into engineered construction grade aggregates and other less common purposes. [1]
[1] During its existence the Ecosciences Panel of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was constantly concerned with (i) the communication gap between the generators of ecological/environmental infor mation and those who use it and (ii) the narrow interpretation of ‘environmental’ which too frequently was taken as being synonymous with pollution.
Because of this concern, and because the panel recognized that land-use is perhaps the overriding facet of environmental policy it was decided to arrange the Seminar recorded in this volume :- Land and its Uses : Actual and Potential An Environmental Appraisal . The development of this Seminar was chaired by Professor F. T. Last who was enthusiastically supported by B. G. Bell (U.K.), Drs S. Bie (Norway), 0. W. Heal (U.K.), R. Herrmann (Federal Republic of Germany), M.C.B.Hotz (formerly of NATO, Belgium, but now in Canada), L. Munn (Canada) and N. Yassoglou (Greece).
Together, they decided that the participants should include (i) planners/decision makers and (ii) scientists generating ecological/environmental information, in the hope that they would gain a better understanding of each others problems and attitudes and as a result identify how information can be prepared in a more usable form. First released through Springer Science & Business Media, March 8th, 2013, 610 pages.