This award is for support of a research program to use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in conjunction with other analytical techniques to investigate four important issues of mineralogical and geochemical interest. These issues are: 1) the behavior of important, rock-forming minerals undergoing structural phase transitions, 2) the structural environments of hydrogen-containing species in aluminosilicate glasses and the mechanisms of diffusion of these species in these glasses, 3) cation order/disorder in some phases stable at high pressure that may be important minerals in the earth's mantle, and 4) the structural environments and dynamic behavior of cations adsorbed on clay minerals. The work will be carried out by the P.I. and his associated at the University of Illinois.
