During the past few years there has been a marked increase in the use of advanced chemical methods in studies of soil and clay mineral systems, but only a relatively small number of soil and clay scientists have become intimately associ ated and acquainted with these new techniques. Perhaps the most important obstacles to technology transfer in this area are: 1) many soil and clay chemists have had insufficient opportunities to explore in depth the working principles of more recent spectroscopic developments, and therefore are unable to exploit the vast wealth of information that is available...