Distilled water spiked with heavy metal cations was passed at a rate of 2-4 ml/min through a filter composed of greensand containing about 80 percent glauconite. The capability of the greensand to trap metal cations is increased by prolonging the contact time between the leachate and the greensand. Flushing the charged greensand filter with water does not cause significant release of cations back into solution, suggesting that polluted greensand might be disposed in landfills without adding pollutants to either ground or surface water in the vicinity.

Columbia sediments in the Middletown-Odessa area are composed of boulders, gravels, sands, silts and clays. These sediments are exposed in four gravel pits where their structures and textures were studied. Subsurface geology was interpreted on the basis of the well-log data from 40 holes drilled in the area of study. Columbia sediments were laid upon a surface made up of the greensands of the Rancocas Formation (Paleocene – Eocene age). The contact between the Rancocas and Columbia Formations is an erosional unconformity.

The Red Clay Creek Valley traverses geologic features that have long been recognized as important to science, industry, and history. The reader will note that within the text "Piedmont", and "Atlantic Coastal Plain" are capitalized. This is because these are formal geologic provinces. The "Fall Line" or "fall zone" is also an important geologic area. The Fall Line is the contact where the hard crystalline rocks of the Piedmont dip under and disappear beneath the sediments of the Coastal Plain.

Minerals are naturally occurring, inorganic substances with characteristic physical and chemical properties. Common examples found in Delaware are quartz (hard, glassy luster), mica (cellophane like pieces), and feldspar (waxy or pearly luster, cleavage). In nature minerals are usually found in mixtures with other minerals. A natural specimen containing several minerals is called "a rock." A common example is granite, which is a mixture of quartz, feldspar, mica, and usually other dark minerals.