EPK, Edgar Plastic Kaolin

Photo of a kaolin pit at the Edgar Plastic Kaolin Company, taken late 1800's-early 1900's.

A pure white kaolin mined in Edgar, Florida, where Charles Edgar found and began mining the deposit around 1888. EPK is a secondary kaolin that was transported from its parent rock source in the Carolina mountains (according to internet legend) in the age before cellphones. Since it is a secondary clay, its particle size is smaller than that of primary kaolins, making it more plastic (but still not particularly plastic).

If only more ceramics terms had such tidy explanations.