Did NASA cheat about Mars clay?

In the presss conference of Sept. 29, 2008, NASA released an Atomic
Force Microscopy and identified a material in it as a clay particle
(Ref. 1)

Various definitions of clay define clay as smaller than 2 microns or
4-5 microns at most. The clay identified by NASA is over 6 microns
long (Ref. 2), beyond any definition of clay. More importantly, any
clay and any silt (2-60 microns) is flaky in shape
(Ref. 3, Fig. 1). The “clay” identified by NASA is far from flaky, as
it has a dimension of 6 X 2 X 1.4 microns (Ref. 2).

Did NASA doctor the image of the Mars “clay” ?

Ref. 1: NASA press release and photo
       Press Release (note fourth paragraph)
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/09_29_pr.php
       NASA photo
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=36969&cID=322

Ref 2: Mars “clay” measurements
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555385523&p=119
Ref. 3: Shape characteristics of clay and silt grains
“Clay and silt particles are flaky. Their thickness is very small
relative to their length & breadth, in some cases as thin as 1/100th
of the length.”
Source of above quote:
http://environment.uwe.ac.uk/geocal/SoilMech/classification/soilclas.htm

Fig. 1: Drawing of the flaky shape of clays
http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=lin440315&b=20&f=1555243730&p=72
(Source of above figure is the same as Ref. 3)

The thickness of both clay and clay minerals range from one tenth to
one hundredth of the mineral length.  So, clay and clay minerals are
all flaky like a leaf, no matter clay refers to a grain size or to a
type of mineral. (other particles within clay may range from 0.1
micron to 50 microns in iameter, but such particles are also flaky, as
they are not sands of 60 to 200 microns.

On 11月3日, 下午10時12分, Lin Liangtai <lin440...@yahoo.com.tw> wrote: