The concept of ice-like water: hydration-dehydration of salts, hydroxides,clay minerals, and living or inert organic matter

The concept of ice-like water is applied to the prediction of hydration-deh ydration reactions among clay minerals, hydroxides, hydrated salts, and liv ing or inert organic matter, which appear to be very sensitive indicators o f the climate of soil genesis and conditions of burial diagenesis. Adsorpti on-desorption under temperature or pressure depends on the thermodynamic pr operties (entropy, heat capacity and volume) of structural water retained i n organic or mineral compounds, which are similar to those of the dense ice polymorphs. ((C) 1999 Academie des sciences/Editions scientifiques et medi cales Elsevier SAS.).