A variety of talc, but with H2O either in the interlayer or associated with the broken bonds at the edges of the particles. As a variety of talc, “kerolite” should not be used as a mineral name in a strict sense. Brindley et al. (1977) reported the composition as Mg3Si4O10(OH)2 . nH2O with n = 0.8 – 1.2. Stacking is turbostratic and particle size is < 5 layers. After weeks under ethylene glycol, kerolite swells slightly, whereas talc does not. Kerolite occurs in weathering profiles (Brindley et al., 1977), in palustrine environments (Pozo and Casas, 1999), and in microbial mats in Hawaiin caves (Léveillé et al., 2002), and may be derived from sepiolite (Stoessell, 1988). Older literature may use the spelling of “Cerolite”.
Cf., pimelite, talc