Electrokinetic phenomena are responsible for several electrical properties of fluid-saturated porous materials. Geophysical applications of these phenomena could include the use of streaming potentials for mapping subsurface fluid flow, the study of hydrothermal activity of geothermal areas, and in the context of earthquake prediction and volcanic activity forecasting, for example. The key parameter of electrokinetic phenomena is the &zgr; potential, which represents roughly the electrical potential at the mineral/water interface. We consider silica-dominated porous materials filled with a binary symmetric 1:1 electrolyte such as NaCl. When in contact with this electrolyte, the silica/water interface gets an excess of charge through chemical reactions. Starting with these chemical reactions, we derive analytical equations for the &zgr; potential and the specific surface conductance. These equations can be used to predict the variations of these parameters with the pore fluid salinity, temperature, and pH (within a pH range of 6--8). The input parameters to these equations fall into two categories: (1) mineral/fluid interaction geochemistry (including mineral surface site density and surface equilibrium constants of mineral/fluid reactions), and (2) pore fluid pH, salinity, and temperature. The &zgr; potential is shown to increase with increasing temperature and pH and to decrease with increasing salinity. The proposed model is in agreement with available experimental data. The application of this model to electric potentials generated in porous media by fluid flow is explored in the companion paper. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union