Industrial Clays Case Study - Professor Haydn Murray Indiana University

These are the sedimentary kaolins in Georgia and South Carolina in the United States; the primary kaolins in the Cornwall area of Southwestern England; and the sedimentary kaolins in the lower Amazon basin in Brazil. [...] Major issues in mining the kaolin in Southwestern England are the disposal of the waste material produced in the processing and the disposal of the 80 to 85% of the host rock from which the kaolin is extracted by hydraulic methods. [...] A good example is in Germany where the overburden is stacked so that it goes back into the pit in the reverse order of its removal so that the top soil is put in place and crops can immediately be grown. [...] Thus the term includes both attapulgite and calcium montmorillonites, so there is a definite overlap in the use of the term fuller=s earth, with both attapulgite and calcium bentonite. [...] It provides employment for about five thousand people and is a major contributor to the economy of the counties in which the mines and processing plants are located.