WEATHERING OF BIOTITE: MICRO TO NANO SCALE REACTIONS IN THE REGOLITH

The chemical and physical weathering of minerals is the fundamental process giving rise to much of the regolith and affects critical processes of the regolith such as metal release and retardation (dissolution-precipitation) and adsorption. Although our understanding of mineral weathering reactions for most primary minerals is extensive from a unit cell scale (Hochella & Banfield 1995)