To make use of the pelagic clay as polymer filling, the properties of clay sediments from the ocean investigation zone of China in the East Pacific were studied by the SSA, XRF, ICP/MAS, FHR, XRD, SEM, DTA/TG and granularity distributing etc. , and experiments were settled to improve the whiteness and activation of the clay based on these data. Compared with land clay, pelagic clay holds many particular features, such as fine particles and incompact accumulation, worse crystallization and more defects, high activity, complex mineral and chemical components, and low whiteness etc. Processing the purified pelagic clay with acids and zinc, then baked it at different temperatures, the whiteness of clay can be increased from 23.8% to 73.1%, and the optimized conditions is : consistency of vitriol 25%, ratio of clay to water 4:1, reaction time 4h, reaction temperature 90℃, dosage of zinc 2.0 g/L, and baking temperature 700℃. And the SSA of whited clay is increased too. Using the dry milling method to modify the pelagic clay with organic reagents, the optimized technique is KH550, concentration 1.5%, reaction time 20 min. XRD,FTIR and SEM testing indicate that the mechanism of organic activation was mainly surface absorbing and chemical combination secondly.