Sepiolite

Common card · No. 346524

Sepiolite, also known in English by the German loanword meerschaum ( MEER-shawm, -⁠shəm; German: [ˈmeːɐ̯ʃaʊm] ; meaning "sea foam"), is a soft white clay mineral, often used to make tobacco pipes (known as meerschaum pipes). A complex magnesium silicate, a typical chemical formula for which is Mg4Si6O15(OH)2·6H2O, it can be present in fibrous, fine-particulate, and solid forms. The fibrous clay minerals have been shown to exist as a continuous polysomatic series where the endmembers are sepiolite and palygorskite; there is a continuous variation in chemical composition from sepiolite, the most magnesic and trioctahedral endmember, to palygorskite, the least magnesic, most Al- and Fe-bearing, most dioctahedral endmember. Originally named Meerschaum by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1788, it was named sepiolite by Ernst Friedrich Glocker in 1847 for an occurrence in Bettolino, Baldissero Canavese, Torino Province, Piedmont, Italy. The name comes from Greek sepion (σήπιον), meaning "cuttlebone...

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