effloresce

The loosely bound water between the layers is easily lost, so the mineral may effloresce.

Who can forget that contrived but vivid scene in "Cruel & Unusual" when a chemical treatment makes virtually invisible decade-old human blood residues effloresce as if the murder had occurred yesterday?

It is very soluble in water, and so can only be found in dry regions: however, in can still effloresce (lose water of crystallisation) in extremely arid climates, altering to tamarugite (the hexahydrate).

Three teams of scientists report in the current issue of the journal Cell that they have finally unearthed what developmental scientists have been seeking for the last 25 years, as they studied the implausibly complex sequence of events that allow a single cell, the fertilized egg, to effloresce into a complete animal.