A member of the kaolin group (1:1 layer, dioctahedral), and polymorphic with dickite and nacrite. The chemical composition is Al2Si2O5(OH)4. In kaolinite, the vacant octahedral site is located in the “B” site in each layer to form a triclinic structure. The “B” and “C” sites would be related by a mirror plane if both sites were occupied identically within the same layer, whereas the “A” site resides on the mirror plane (Bish and Von Dreele, 1989). Kaolinite forms under diagenetic and hydrothermal conditions, and may transform to dickite at higher temperatures. At very high temperatures, kaolinite transforms to “metakaolinite”. In early publications, kaolinite was used as the group name, now known as kaolin.
Cf., dickite, halloysite, kaolin, nacrite