Volume 4 of Reviews in Mineralogy was prepared to serve as notes for a short course on the
Mineralogy and Geology of Natural Zeolites held in Seattle Washington November 4-6 1977. The
title of the short course reads Natural Zeolites however the subject matter treated in the
course and reviewed here deals primarily with those zeolites that occur in sedimentary rocks
and which have formed by authigenic or burial diagenetic processes. Unfortunately only limited
coverage has been given to the classical occurrences of zeolites--the megascopic crystals in
the vugs and cavities of basalts and other basic igneous rocks. Our only justification is that
since the late 1950s almost all major efforts on zeolites have been directed towards the
sedimentary occurrences and it is these occurrences of zeolites in sedimentary rocks that are
still unfamiliar to many geologists and mineralogists. It is our intention that this short
course and these notes will play a small role in alleviating this unfamiliarity.
