Anthophyllite asbestos from Staten Island, New York: Longitudinal fiber splitting

Abstract

Asbestos ore was sampled from a historical anthophyllite mine in Staten Island, New York. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) was used to image the structure of nineteen fibers of the anthophyllite asbestos. The anthophyllite was characterized by a high level of chain width disorder, involving wide chain multiplicity faults (CMFs) that were frequent in fibers, randomly spaced, and ranged from one to eight chains in width. This chain width disorder was manifest by streaking of electron diffraction rows of chain width. The anthophyllite asbestos fibers were found to be produced by longitudinal splitting rather than crystal growth. Such splitting is a function of cleavage along CMFs rather than crystal boundaries. The morphology of the fibers is consistent with anthophyllite asbestos mined in Finland associated with lung cancer and mesothelioma. These findings may have regulatory implications.

Keywords:

• Anthophyllite
• asbestos
• chain-width-disorder
• splitting
• Staten Island

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the assistance of Professor Krassimer N. Bozhilov, of the Central Facility for Advanced Microscopy and Microanalysis, University of California, Riverside, for his operation and interpretation of the electron microscopy and with the crystallography, and mineral identifications. We also thank Nathan Rabideaux, of the Chemistry Department, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey for his operation of x-ray diffraction equipment. This research did not receive any grants from funding agencies.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.