Abstract
<p class="zhengwen">Three residual clay occurrences in Idi-Ayunre, and Akure areas which belong to the Precambrian basement complex of southwestern Nigeria were investigated for their mineralogical, chemical and industrial properties. The investigation was to evaluate their industrial applications and economic importance. The clay within the weathered profiles above banded gneiss at Idi-Ayunre is whitish with red spots, whereas the clays derived from profiles above porphyritic granite and granite gneiss in Akure are grayish and brown in color respectively.</p><p class="zhengwen">The X-ray diffraction studies show that kaolinite is the dominant clay mineral, goethite, microcline, quartz, albite are the major non clay minerals in the samples. Chemical data showed that the average values of SiO<sub>2</sub>, Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>, and Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> were 52.3. 30.29 and 3.54 wt% respectively constituting 86.13% of the bulk compositions.</p>Evaluation of the clay thermal characteristic, firing colour, water absorption capacities and shrinkage values show that the brownish Idi-Ayunre clay, gray and brown Akure kaolinitic clays could serve as raw materials for ceramics, building bricks, and other structural wares
Highlights
Laterites are most widely distributed soils in southwestern Nigeria which is characterized by tropical climate
The clay layer is underlain by saprolitic zone which graded into the bedrock
The data resulted from macropetrography and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) show that the residual clay profiles developed over the basement complex in Akure and Idi-ayunre are dominantly kaolinitic
Summary
Laterites are most widely distributed soils in southwestern Nigeria which is characterized by tropical climate. Some of the basement rocks have been greatly weathered to form residual clays in the southwestern Nigeria, extensive occurrences and utilization of such residual bodies have been reported by various scientists. Presented the industrial applications of some of the clay deposits in southwestern Nigeriae clay deposit. Emofurieta et al, (1995) described the mineralogy and the geochemistry of lateritic clays derived from weathered biotite gneiss in Ile-Ife. Southwestern Nigeria. They observed that the clay assemblage is dominated by kaolinite, Montmorilonite, vermiculite and illite. Two lateritic profiles on ultramafic rocks of southwestern Nigeria were investigated for the formation of secondary minerals by Ige et al 2005
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