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Dangerous dust: Erionite - an asbestos-like mineral causing a cancer epidemic in Turkey - is found…
http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/dangerous-dust-erionite-asbestos-mineral-causing-cancer-epidemic-turkey-found-least-13[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]Dangerous dust: Erionite - an asbestos-like mineral causing a cancer epidemic in Turkey - is found in at least 13 states[/font]
[font size=3]As North Dakota’s state geologist, Ed Murphy has spent a fair amount of time mapping the geology of the Killdeer Mountains in the western part of the state, hiking up and down buttes of the White River Group and the Arikaree Formation. In the 1980s, he and colleagues mapped large deposits of rocks bearing erionite — a zeolite mineral formed when volcanic ash is altered by water — that may have had some commercial use. No use was ever found for the mineral itself, but for roughly 30 years, several gravel-mining operations have been excavating the chalky, grey-brown rock from these erionite-bearing formations. It was then crushed and spread on nearly 500 kilometers of roads in Dunn County, as well as on playgrounds, baseball fields, parking lots and even flower beds.
Murphy didn’t hear much about erionite again until 2005, when he received a phone call from Nels Forsman, a geology professor at the University of North Dakota who, as a post-doc working with the state geological survey in 1986, had identified erionite deposits in the northwestern part of the state.
Forsman had just heard a talk on the medical geochemistry of earth materials by Geoff Plumlee, a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, Colo., who had mentioned erionite occurrences in the United States. He also mentioned the unprecedented rates of malignant mesothelioma that the asbestos-like mineral causes in some villages in the Cappadocia region of Turkey.
“We were trying to find an industrial use for it; we had no idea it was potentially carcinogenic,” says Murphy, who immediately contacted the state Department of Health. “It just never dawned on us.”
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[font size=3]As North Dakota’s state geologist, Ed Murphy has spent a fair amount of time mapping the geology of the Killdeer Mountains in the western part of the state, hiking up and down buttes of the White River Group and the Arikaree Formation. In the 1980s, he and colleagues mapped large deposits of rocks bearing erionite — a zeolite mineral formed when volcanic ash is altered by water — that may have had some commercial use. No use was ever found for the mineral itself, but for roughly 30 years, several gravel-mining operations have been excavating the chalky, grey-brown rock from these erionite-bearing formations. It was then crushed and spread on nearly 500 kilometers of roads in Dunn County, as well as on playgrounds, baseball fields, parking lots and even flower beds.
Murphy didn’t hear much about erionite again until 2005, when he received a phone call from Nels Forsman, a geology professor at the University of North Dakota who, as a post-doc working with the state geological survey in 1986, had identified erionite deposits in the northwestern part of the state.
Forsman had just heard a talk on the medical geochemistry of earth materials by Geoff Plumlee, a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, Colo., who had mentioned erionite occurrences in the United States. He also mentioned the unprecedented rates of malignant mesothelioma that the asbestos-like mineral causes in some villages in the Cappadocia region of Turkey.
“We were trying to find an industrial use for it; we had no idea it was potentially carcinogenic,” says Murphy, who immediately contacted the state Department of Health. “It just never dawned on us.”
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