Glass — amorphous?

Abstract
Glass, amorphous, and noncrystalline materials are important constituents of rocks, soils, marine sediments, and nuclear waste. It has long been recognized that many clay minerals crystallize from noncrystalline precursors, the paracrystalline allophane, and saprolite passing through adsorption and deposition in solution.Three glass materials were examined with a JEOL-JEM 100C at 100 KV and JEOL-JEM 400 EX, TEM-STEM analytical electron microscope at 400 KV. The <2 μm sized fractions were concentrated by the sedimentation technique and pipetted on grids for TEM. Specimens were collected from Michipicoten Island, Canada, and Ilha Bela, Brazil, and compared with a waste form glass.High-resolution transmission electron microscopy clearly shows the rearrangement of the glass framework of 3Å domain structure and growth of the transitional products, primitive clay precursors and 14Å clays.The crystallization may be induced by the domain structure on the substrate surface already existing prior to deposition.

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