The use of cerium oxide (ceria) as an abrasive for dielectric chemical mechanical polishing has a “checkered” history to say the least. Nevertheless, its use remains attractive for this purpose because of favorable polishing characteristics that are generally not obtainable using conventional fumed or colloidal silica abrasives. To be specific, large differences are commonly observed between removal rates of thin film silicon oxide, silicon nitride, and/or polysilicon. Moreover, such rate selectivity invariably favors removal of oxide films, which of course, is precisely what is desirable for fabrication of modern shallow trench isolation schemes. Even so, CMP using ceria abrasive often exhibits unusual characteristics that cannot be explained adequately by conventional polishing models based on pad/asperity elasticity or pressure distribution over features. Most notably, non-conventional, observed behaviors can be collected under the rubric of “slow start phenomena”. In this work, it is asserted that specific polishing characteristics of ceria slurry are largely due to the detailed surface chemistry of ceria particles and their interaction with silica. In any case, it is further shown that modification of slurry lubrication can alleviate slow-start and shift CMP process characteristics back toward more conventional behavior.