Asbestos Mineral: Chrysotile
Hand-specimen of asbestiform serpentine ore, also known as chrysotile, one of six minerals currently regulated as "asbestos".
In this example, from a Canadian locality, a seam of silky crystalline chrysotile in rocky matrix demonstrates the inherently fibrous nature of this toxic mineral oddity.
Medieval myth and lore once mistakenly believed the hair-like qualities of asbestos originated from "salamander's wool", then later erroneously thought to be based in the plant kingdom in the 19th-century.
When disturbed, chrysotile asbestos can split into innumerable bundles, often referred to as "fibers", a characteristic somewhat unique to asbestos minerals. Individual unit fibrils of chrysotile are extremely thin tubular crystals or rolled sheet-silicates on the order of microns and angstroms in diameter. Visible asbestos "fibers" can further sub-divide into such small, microscopic particles that they practically become "invisible" and can become airborne.
Inhalation exposures to microscopic airborne asbestos particles have been well documented to cause serious respiratory diseases, cancers, and has been linked to disease-causation in other bodily systems, which can ultimately lead to fatality.
Asbestos Mineral: Chrysotile
Hand-specimen of asbestiform serpentine ore, also known as chrysotile, one of six minerals currently regulated as "asbestos".
In this example, from a Canadian locality, a seam of silky crystalline chrysotile in rocky matrix demonstrates the inherently fibrous nature of this toxic mineral oddity.
Medieval myth and lore once mistakenly believed the hair-like qualities of asbestos originated from "salamander's wool", then later erroneously thought to be based in the plant kingdom in the 19th-century.
When disturbed, chrysotile asbestos can split into innumerable bundles, often referred to as "fibers", a characteristic somewhat unique to asbestos minerals. Individual unit fibrils of chrysotile are extremely thin tubular crystals or rolled sheet-silicates on the order of microns and angstroms in diameter. Visible asbestos "fibers" can further sub-divide into such small, microscopic particles that they practically become "invisible" and can become airborne.
Inhalation exposures to microscopic airborne asbestos particles have been well documented to cause serious respiratory diseases, cancers, and has been linked to disease-causation in other bodily systems, which can ultimately lead to fatality.