Asbestos is a commercial term referring to 6 fibrous minerals from 2 mineralogical classes: serpentine and amphibole. Chrysotile, or white asbestos, is the only serpentine mineral. The asbestiform habit of amphibole asbestos is far more toxic than chrysotile. However, most amphibole minerals are found in the “non-asbestiform” state that pose few, if any, health risks. Comminution, whether delib...

The discovery of the extreme antiquity of specific minerals through radiometric dating (e.g., Strutt 1910), coupled with Norman L. Bowen’s recognition of a deterministic evolutionary sequence of silicate minerals in igneous rocks (Bowen 1915, 1928), implies that Earth’s crustal mineralogy has changed dramatically through more than 4.5 billion years of planetary history. Detailed examination of ...

The authors present the results of chemical and mineralogical analyses of urban dusts collected in the spring seasons of 2015 and 2016 in three different parks of the Cracow agglomeration. The parks are located in the city centre, in the Nowa Huta industrial district and in a new housing development situated around 9 km west of the city centre. Mineralogical instrumental analyses included the S...

This paper discusses the content, distribution, modes of occurrence, and enrichment mechanism of mineral matter and trace elements of an Early Permian coal from Songshao (Yunnan Province, China) by means of coal-petrological, mineralogical, and geochemical techniques. The results show that the Songshao coal is characterized by high total and organic sulfur contents (3.61% and 3.87%, respectivel...

Speleothem deposits are among the most valuable continental formations in paleoclimate research, as they can be dated using absolute dating methods, and they also provide valuable climate proxies. However, alteration processes such as post-depositional mineralogical transformations can significantly influence the paleoclimatic application of their geochemical data. An innovative sampling and me...

With the insertion of the NEAR spacecraft into orbit around the asteroid 433 Eros, a new stage of asteroid exploration has begun, with the return of spatially resolved mineralogical, geological, and chemical information from specific asteroids. In this paper, we outline the features of a partially differentiated asteroid using the acapulcoite and lodranite meteorites as a guide. Such a body wou...

Uranium and chromium are two elements of particular concern within the DOE complex that, owing to their abundance and toxicity, appear well suited for biologically mediated reductive stabilization. Subsurface microbial activity can alter the redox state of toxic metals and radionuclides, rending them immobile. Furthermore, anaerobic bacterial metabolic products will help to buffer pulses of oxi...

metal determinations by chemical analysis alone are no longer sufficient. Our group (see references), initially funded under the NERC URGENT program, has applied a variety of mineralogical methods to chromate ore processing residue (COPR) which contaminates land around Glasgow, Scotland (Figure 1). These methods are underpinned by use of the Chemical Database Service (CDS) databases in some ver...