In some parts of Illinois occur sands or sandstone that contain numerous grains of the green mineral glauconite. If the sands are not discolored by iron compounds or other substances, they too have a greenish color and, therefore, are called greensands. Glauconite varies in composition but contains potassium, magnesium, iron, aluminum, silicon, and water. Greensand is said to be used in relatively small amounts as a soil conditioner and as a water-softening agent. Greensand is known to occur in the general vicinity of Olmsted in southern Illinois. Near Oregon in northern Illinois an old quarry exposed 10 feet of greenish brown sandstone that contains glauconite. Samples from southern Illinois and from the sandstone at Oregon contained more than 6 percent potassium oxide. Marl In some of the lakes and ponds left by the glaciers lived numerous small mollusks with calcium carbonate shells. As the animals died, their shells formed a deposit on the bottom of the lakes and ponds. Certain plants, especially algae, may have added a mudlike precipitate of calcium carbonate to the deposits, and varying amounts of clay washed from the shores mixed with both these materials. The resultant deposit is called marl. Some marl deposits have peat mixed with them, and peat also overlies some marl deposits. Only comparatively small amounts of marl are known to have been dug in Illinois. One deposit containing many shells and shell fragments, some of it associated with peat, was worked in southeastern Livingston County as a source of agricultural liming material. Other deposits have been reported at other places in northeastern Illinois. The available information indicates that the marl deposits are likely to be principally of local importance. Tufa and Travertine The tufa (fig. 23) and travertine occurring as surficial deposits in Illinois were formed by springs. The deposits usually occur at or near the outcrop of a layer of porous water-bearing earth material, such as gravel, sandstone, or fissured limestone, that is underlain by a nonporous clay or shale formation. Water moving down through the porous layer cannot sink through the clay or shale and so is forced to move laterally. Where valleys have cut into the layers of gravel or rock, the water emerges as springs. If the material through which the water has passed is limestone, or gravel containing limestone as most Illinois gravels do, some of the limestone is likely to have dissolved in the water. When the water issues as a spring, conditions may be such as to cause precipitation of the dissolved limestone as tufa or, more rarely, travertine. Tufa is generally highly porous and more or less impure, whereas travertine is harder and less porous.