The periodic nature of the rheological property variation of zirconium oxyhydrate is determined by the microheterogeneous variability of the precipitate structure which changes with time. This effect is interpreted as the autowave manifestation of polymer-peptization processes in forming gel matrix. The work considers new experimental and theoretical approaches to the formation of discrete features of the oxyhydrate gel system structure, which interpret the processes of self-organization of such compounds. The effect of the quantization of circular pacemaker diameters in forming oxyhydrate gels of heavy metals far from the equilibrium state is found experimentally and described mathematically. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.