The Geology of Asbestos
[00:00:00]
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Hi, great.
Hi, Christopher.
Chris Bolhuis: Hey. How you doing, Jesse Remake?
What's going on?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: don't know, man. What's going on?
I, uh, went down a deep dive here on this 1. this episode
Chris Bolhuis: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so so love the backstory [00:00:30] here, Chris. And the this is, uh, 1 of our, quote, unquote, themes where I don't know how many of the themes we'll get to. It might take 4 years get through this theme. But, you you called me 1 day. Um, and, you know, when you call me in the middle of, like, the workday Well, you do. Yeah. But when you call me, like, in the middle of a school day, usually, there's, like, an idea percolating somewhere. know?
so you're like, okay, Jesse. I was looking through the textbook that I teach this intro to geology class with, and there's these little insets, you know, these little, like, summary [00:01:00] highlight insets that cover, sometimes a societally relevant topic or something, you know, kind of at a at a very, very general level, like, here's why you need to know it. And there's a bunch of these that I think would make cool podcast episodes. And this episode, asbestos, was 1 of them. And was this the was this the kindling for the fire?
Was this, like, the 1 that gave you the idea, maybe?
Chris Bolhuis: it absolutely was. I have, Jesse, I have a whole notepad full of ideas About what we're gonna do for season 4 of planet Geo.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Let [00:01:30] me interrupt you real quick because I remember having this discussion. I think, couple months into, like, planning before we even launched any episodes here, I think both of us were like, is there enough content in geology? Like, What do we do once we've covered plate tectonics?
And, you know, that was that was our our ignorance there at the beginning when we're you know, that we thought, oh, there's not enough there's just not enough content, not enough topics to cover that are interesting and
Chris Bolhuis: What a ridiculous thought that was. I know. I know. [00:02:00] I mean, granted, don't don't get me wrong.
We glided through that first year in terms of, oh, this is easy. Let's do this next. Right? This is so relevant. This is so important.
it should matter to everybody. Let's do it. Right? Now things are different, but don't have a problem with coming up with, uh, new content.
Good
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Definitely not.
So let's go back to to this 1 that you you this script together. You said, okay. Hey. I'm just I'm gonna put some thoughts on paper on asbestos, and it's taken me a while to get to it. And I remember you a bunch of notes together, thoughts [00:02:30] together, and you then you're like I think you added a comment.
Hey. you get doctor y right here. And I didn't get back to this for, like, a month and a half. I I let it sit for too long. And then I got into it, and it was, I don't know, last week or 2 weeks ago.
Chris Bolhuis: I gotta be careful what I ask for. I really do because you got you got
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh, I I did because I
Chris Bolhuis: It's all good stuff, though. It's all good.
There are some things that that I'm gonna, gonna I'm gonna put the stop button on you with A little bit here. But no. It's all good, though. [00:03:00] I, yeah, I like your additions. You did a good job, Jess.
Look at
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Thank you. While the structure was there, it was easy. It was easy to just plug into.
Chris Bolhuis: I have some news off topic. Can I go? Can I
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Uh, yeah. Sure.
Go ahead. Oh, 0, and check with the producer. Uh, yep. You're good.
Chris Bolhuis: Producer Watson gave you the thumbs up. is a good boy. Um, so, Jesse, I don't know if you'll be excited about this, but I am super excited.
Jenny and I Oh, I wish. oh, yeah. That'd be great. But this is better.
This [00:03:30] is better. That going to Iceland for 3 weeks This summer. This summer.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: exciting. That's awesome.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. We are gonna backpack the Lagerveger Trail, which is, um, it's a 35 mile trail, but we're gonna tack on another day, another 15 mile day at the end.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's, uh, so this is your your, like, you and Jenny trip that you're gonna do?
Chris Bolhuis: Yes.
Yes.
So you know Steve Maddox, doctor Maddox. Right? He sent me an email, a link.
a YouTube link. And [00:04:00] he said, wait till you get home. Watch it with Jenny on the big screen. Turn the volume up. So we it was, like, 20 minutes long, and it was this really unbelievable Backpacker that has he's a photographer, and he did just an amazing job of photographing the journey on this Trail.
It's supposed to be 1 of the top 10 trails in the world, and it's amazing. I should send you the
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Do that. That's, uh, that sounds like amazing, like, February doldrums, uh, watching, you know, to [00:04:30] you know, I, uh, Iceland's on my geological bucket list for sure. I've never been, and, um, I get a lot of sort of crap for it from colleagues because, you know, I work on these old rocks in Canada, and they have a lot of we we've always my thesis work, we kind of proposed that Iceland or an Iceland like setting was analogous to the formation of these 4000000000 year old rocks.
So something akin to modern Iceland formed these some of the oldest rocks we know of on Earth. That was 1 of the conclusions. And so I take a little bit of heat for not [00:05:00] have ever been to Iceland or looked at the Icelandic
Chris Bolhuis: Oh, okay.
Now I get what you're saying. I thought you were gonna go the other way because you wanna go to Iceland, but there's no there are no old rocks in
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's that's true
Chris Bolhuis: 25000000 Years
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's true too. It's a it it cuts both ways, that 1. Anyway, it's on my bucket list for for several reasons there. That's cool, man. That I'm excited for you
Chris Bolhuis: So it is super cool. And you know what too? I I love you know this about me.
I'm a planner, and I love this part of it. This [00:05:30] is curing my My winter
Dr. Jesse Reimink: This is this is the thing, Chris. This is, in part, This is why we need to travel together more.
I do not like this part, and you love it. So this would be great. Pick a deck destination, and Chris has got it sorted, team. We're doing it. Like, this is why yeah.
Yeah. That's right. This is why when you're done with the summer science trip teaching high schoolers, should run a guided service of this. You know? Just run it for adults.
I mean, you'd be amazing at
Chris Bolhuis: I would love it. I would love [00:06:00] to do that, actually. Jenny and I have actually we've we've teased this out. We've talked
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, hey. If you're interested in that, uh, email is planet geocast at g mail dot com.
Uh, just title it with Chris, please guide me on the Yellowstone trip
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Or anywhere else out west.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Wherever. Totally. Totally.
Chris Bolhuis: I'm a planner.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: uh, that's exciting. Okay. Cool.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
That's super exciting. So there's my
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's the good news. I don't have anything nearly as exciting to report about the summer there. So, uh, although,
Chris Bolhuis: heading [00:06:30] to Denver. You know?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You the the kind of the usual the usual stuff.
We got a big, big summer that remains to we don't know exactly how it's gonna fall out yet. But, anyways
Chris Bolhuis: Wait, Jesse, back on topic.
Can we do that?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: how about this, Chris? What stood out to you about the little inset box. And I think everybody can kinda picture what these are.
These, your textbook, you'll have a whole bunch of content and images linked to the text and stuff. And then there'll be these little offset boxes that are like, here's why it's important. Here's the 3 bullet points you need to know about this. [00:07:00] What struck you about asbestos? Lead us in here.
Chris Bolhuis: what struck me about it is I'm old enough to remember the panic. The you know, when asbestos became evil and it needed to be Really purged from anything. You know? Like, every school, every building, uh, we just really went into A panic on asbestos. so that because I'm old enough to remember that, and then I I just read about this, and and an interesting little box.
I have my kids read it. [00:07:30] It's a part of 1 of the chapters that they have to read, and that's what did it for me is because I remember all of the The hubbub that kinda surrounded asbestos.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay.
Chris Bolhuis: And so I, you know, I guess too and I think you feel the same way As I dive into it then and kind of, like, answer the question, you know, was this worth it? was it worth the panic? And I have some thoughts on
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Chris, I've run into this at Penn State, you know, as we're setting up our lab. like, [00:08:00] renovating stuff. Right? Like, going into an old room, picture an old lab space that has, like, chemicals and beakers and unknown stuff in the cabinets.
They gotta sift through and be like, okay. Well, The chemical people come in and take out all the bad chemicals, and then there's, like, don't have the cupboards where you want it. We we have these chalkboards and that needed to come out because we wanna put other stuff on the walls. We gotta hook up instruments to the walls and stuff. And 1 of the things was we'd these chalkboards on the walls, and we'd say, oh, we wanna take that 1 down.
And they're like, uh, no. You probably don't wanna take that [00:08:30] down because it's probably got asbestos behind it. And so if you leave it, it's fine. But if you'd wanna take it down, it's gonna cost 50 grand to take that thing down because you gotta do all the asbestos remediation and, you know, everybody's gotta get kitted up for the asbestos removal. So we're in the space of, like, if there's asbestos there in the tile or behind the wall, you just leave it Because it's not a problem that is just sitting there.
But I think what you're talking about is, 20 years ago or 15 years ago or 30 years ago, people were pulling it out because they thought it was a problem [00:09:00] of it just sitting
Chris Bolhuis: That's right. Absolutely. Um, schools were revamped. know, they would go in and remove this stuff where, like you said, if you just leave it alone, it posed no danger.
was not the approach, especially, like, early on. And I think later on in the episode, we'll talk about this too because it did affect my own classroom, Jesse. Actually, I think let's let's go ahead And start with the asbestos panic that began basically in 19 86.
Uh, shall we do
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yeah. You're gonna have to lead [00:09:30] off on 1 because, wasn't quite born at the onset of this yet. I was I was but a twinkle. I was but a twinkle at this time. I'm 1 of those
Chris Bolhuis: a minute. When were you born?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I'm an 87 er.
So
Chris Bolhuis: Oh my gosh. is
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Sad. I know. Right? I know. Well, here's the thing.
Yeah. I was in a I've told this before, but I started feeling old, like, a couple years ago when I heard overheard [00:10:00] some undergrads who were working in the Penn State bookstore. And 1 of them there are 2 people the checkout. And 1 of them was like, you'll never believe this. There was this thing.
Everybody was worried in the year 2000. Everybody thought all the computers were gonna go, like, just explode or something, and they called it y 2 k, and everybody was, like, freaking out. And the other girl was like, no way. That didn't we happy? Are you kidding me?
And I was overhearing this being like, wow. I very vividly remember y 2 k. Like
Chris Bolhuis: Yes.
Yes. Absolutely.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So I [00:10:30] could see I could see this going in that thought process going on in your head right now of of this. So anyways, it's best as panic in 19 86.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
Well, I guess I better talk about it because you weren't even, like, a thought at the moment.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh,
Chris Bolhuis: So, uh, it it all started, like we said, in 19 86. K? And this really came from Health concerns that were related to asbestos minors. there were certain things were starting to show up more [00:11:00] With these people that had higher exposures, things like asbestosis, which is this long scarring from the the fiber inhalation, taking the stuff in.
And we'll talk about the fibrous nature of it, next. get into that in a little bit here. another thing that showed up Masothelioma. This is this cancer of the chest and the abdominal cavity. And then, of course, lung cancer.
And so these minors were was a much, much higher death rate from these things [00:11:30] and related issues, And that kind of led to this asbestos panic and and that began in 19
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. so we're gonna talk about a couple Let's introduce these terms now. We're gonna talk about well, let's introduce asbestos first. Asbestos is just a general it's really an industrial or commercial term. a term that's been adopted by geologists, but it it's not a mineral.
Asbestos is not a single mineral. There's a couple different minerals that are in the group, the category, what we think of as asbestos, [00:12:00] and they basically have a really long thin nature. So think of like a long needle shape. They're really a fiber, like a long thin fiber. There's a couple categories.
We call them brown, blue, or white. There's a bunch of different categories of these, different types of minerals that have this fibrous nature to them that are asbestos. And we have really amphiboles are 1, and then we have Part of the serpentine group, which is the mineral chrysotile, and that's white asbestos, and the other ones are more amphiboles, categories, [00:12:30] different categories of amphiboles that are the blue or the brown asbestos.
Chris Bolhuis: and sorry, Jesse. That distinction is super important because you said you have the white asbestos, and that's the chrysotile. The white asbestos is easily the most common kind, but it's different because it's more curly Then the brown or blue asbestos, which you said come from the amphiboles.
And I think most people are familiar with mineral horn blend, which is a kind of amphibole too. The brown and blue asbestos [00:13:00] is really, really long and straight. And so what it does Is it can pierce the lungs and then it stays lodged
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Oh, Chris. This is very exciting. We're gonna there's a reason why it's straight, and the other one's curly, and it has to do with the mineralogy that we're gonna come back to when we talk about
these.
But we gotta cover some
Chris Bolhuis: got doctor. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put the tamper on you.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay. But not too much because it is interesting. Okay. Um, so so you're right.
We have to make this distinction. We're gonna talk about the the [00:13:30] amphibole asbestos, which is the black or brown or green. They call them different colors, but non white ones, basically. And then white asbestos is the mineral chrysotile. And I think it's a Important note that there's not much asbestos production anymore.
You know, after this panic, which was, uh, over 35 years ago, current production of asbestos is a couple hundred tons, and they're fairly local regional, like, small scale, operations. So there's a lot of asbestos out there the walls and in the tiles, but not much active production going [00:14:00] on.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. But it is really important to note that 90 percent of all the asbestos was used industrially was the white asbestos, So there has never been a distinction between the white asbestos, And then the brown and the blue, it was just lumped in as asbestos
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. No. That's a good point. And I think there's a let let's start to talk about it's useful. What is the structure of this stuff?
What is asbestos? which helps guide us to why did humanity use this stuff in the first place? I think that's a really important thing. What purpose did it [00:14:30] serve? And so Asbestos, again, it's an
Chris Bolhuis: Wait a minute. So now you're saying we're getting back on topic, Jesse. We're we're back
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Well, let's start to get in the weeds
a little bit. Let's get into the weeds. Um, he so this is I I would describe this, Chris. tell me if this is a fair description, Chris.
I would categorize this as a morphological category. Like, is asbestos really a morphological category of of minerals? And what I mean by that is, like, you know and you teach that crystal shape is a terrible [00:15:00] way to identify minerals because quartz can have that beautiful, like, 6 sided pyramid, or it can be just a raw hunk of quartz with no crystal shape to it, or it can have sort of bulbous crystal growth. crystal growth shape is not indicative of a mineral. So,
Chris Bolhuis: Oh, Jesse. Jesse. You just offended every mineralogist out there, think walk
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: no longer
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Good
Chris Bolhuis: to this podcast because of oh, my College mineralogy professor [00:15:30] would would not be happy with your comment right there.
Like, he loves crystallography.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: well, crystallography is different than, like, the shape, how we view it with our eyes. Like, the interior structure is really important and really key, but the the outer shape doesn't really matter. And in in asbestos here, They're classified by this outer shape.
So they're long, what we would call, like, a circular or needle like, and they have a length to width ratio. So how long is [00:16:00] How long is the needle versus how thick in diameter is the needle? of a sewing needle. How long is that thing versus the diameter of that thing?
It's either 20 up to some can go up to thousands of times longer than they are wide in diameter. So these are really needles.
Chris Bolhuis: the extreme version of that. Absolutely.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Right. Right. that's important because they can be, like, spun together.
these sort of needles are like fibers like cloth that can be spun.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Well, Jesse, you've alluded to it, but you didn't really say it because you got all professory on us [00:16:30] and all that.
But The bottom line is these are all silicate minerals. The asbestos group of minerals are silicates, which is, You silicates collectively are the most abundant mineral group on the surface of the planet anyway. Um, but What's important about them? Like, why were these so widely used? Well, 1, really important, is that they're very fire retardant.
I mean, they're they're not combustible At all. They have this high thermal stability. [00:17:00] They're really resistant to biodegradation, so they don't break down. they're chemically inert. Right?
They're nonreactive things, and they also have a very low electrical conductivity. So these are some of the properties That made it really useful. And we'll come back to this in a little bit and talk about some of the specific uses. Right? But know, they're really strong.
They're really, really flexible, they can kind of be spun, right, and and used and and woven [00:17:30] in to certain
Dr. Jesse Reimink: And
So, Chris, I think let's talk Let's kinda talk about how these things are used. what is this mineral group useful for? Like, why are these big, long, Super strong fibers, what are those useful for?
Right? And,
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Alright.
Well, Jesse, hold on a second. I'm I'm looking at the script here, and I I see a bunch of numbers. like, pounds per square inch, and then you you have some chemical equations going on here. Jesse, I honestly I have no idea what you're doing [00:18:00] here, and
I I think this is a little bit over the top. What can you please explain this to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay.
I think, uh, We'll stay out of the weeds. But the point is is that they're really strong. These fibers are really strong because they're silicates. Chris, remember you and I recorded, we spent a lot a great deal of time making a minerals chapter with a whole bunch of episodes in it in our Camp Geo content.
So if you go to the mobile app, Camp Geo mobile you can listen to the minerals chapter. We talk about the silica tetrahedron, and we talk about the strength of s I [00:18:30] o bonds. And These things, these asbestos group minerals are built on s I o bonds. So they're very strong in that they're strong when they're heated as well. Like most things, They get hot, they break apart chemically, and they get weak.
These s I o bonds remain strong up to, in the case of chrysotile, like, 500 degrees centigrade. They actually get stronger as they're heated in some cases. So this is why it's, useful for humanity. have these fibers we can spin, but they remain strong, and [00:19:00] they're great insulators, and they remain strong when they're heated. So, like, if you wanna build a furnace, you wanna put asbestos in it.
Right? Instead
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Right.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: know, this is this is the value of this stuff.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Well, yeah.
I mean, Jesse, like, it was used in my classroom. Right? We had these tile floors, they had asbestos in them. And you know what? They were scratch resistant.
I mean, you could drop rocks on them and nothing happened to them. Right? My lab tabletops had asbestos in them. They were bomb proof, these [00:19:30] things. Well, then all this happened.
So this was really early in my career I didn't start teaching until 97. But it took time for this panic to take hold and then remove everything. Right?
And so, yeah, my lab tabletops, my flooring, it was all ripped out. The insulation in the ceiling, which was great for that. Right? If asbestos makes a great insulator, 1 for its insulating properties, but also because it's a fire retardant too. So all of this stuff was removed and then replaced with really inferior
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:20:00] that's right.
And if you were gonna build, uh, the comparison of, like, cotton or wool or something. Right? If you're gonna insulate stuff with wool, you don't wanna insulate your house with wool because that's flammable. So you wanna insulate it with stuff that doesn't burn, And this stuff doesn't burn. So this is the use of of these things.
And they are formed these long, acicular needle like minerals are often formed. You need space to grow something that, long. Right? You need a new
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Hold on.
Now hold on. Let's be clear here, Jesse. You're [00:20:30] talking about geologically now. Right? When the asbestos mineral Formed.
Okay. So I just wanted to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No. That that's a that's a really good point, So how do we form these, long needle like structures? And there's 2 ways. The white asbestos, we'll come back to that because it's the more common 1 and probably Maybe more interesting.
If we focus on the fables, Chris, you mentioned Hornblend. Hornblend, do you remember the Hornblend chemical formula, Chris?
Chris Bolhuis: Oh my gosh. Um, I know it's ridiculously long,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I don't remember it.
Chris Bolhuis: it. Thank goodness.
Did you [00:21:00] have to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: no.
Uh, I Not that I remember. And if I did, I probably got it wrong. But it's something ridiculous. It's got every l o every major element you could possibly think of can substitute.
It has a ridiculous number of valence sites, like spots to put cations. And so you can put all sorts of different cations in different spots, and You they fall into different categories. It's just an utterly complicated mineral structure, and amphibole is a big group of minerals. So you can substitute all sorts of stuff. But these amphiboles, they're a double Chain [00:21:30] silicate, so they have this
Chris Bolhuis: Hold on. Hold on. I'm sorry.
I gotta interrupt, Just because you gotta go back to the part where you were talking about they need space, they need room. We need to back out of that and,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No. That's a great okay.
Chris Bolhuis: I'm trying to keep you out of the weeds, Jesse. So I gotta bring you back to where you were talking about the the how they need space to grow.
Let's let's talk about that because I'm actually really interested In what you're gonna say
Dr. Jesse Reimink: let's move on from the complexity of Hornblend that nobody remembers.
Chris Bolhuis: please. Oh my
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So but Hornblend, Chris, I remember in your lab looking at Hornblend, we [00:22:00] do it in Penn State's lab. Like, there's a big piece of Hornblend, and it's blocky. It It's kind of long, but it's big and blocky.
It's not needle like. And so the way to think of these amphibole group minerals, this is a bit of an imperfect analogy, but they need to be kinda spun out, like, drawn out in fibers. So you start nucleating the crystal and then it's kind of getting stretched as it's getting grown. And then because this structure, just a chemical structure, can accommodate all sorts of different elements in there, you can kind of bend the [00:22:30] crystal structure really nicely. It can kind of grow with defects really easily and and that makes it, structurally stable in this long needle like structure.
Chris Bolhuis: What would cause that then you have this kind of seed crystal that's growing, What would cause the stretching as it's growing? Like, geologically, what would do this and where would we see
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yeah. That's a great question. I think maybe the listener should think about this a minute. And Chris, where do we get space? Where do you [00:23:00] generate space in rocks?
where are 2 parts
Chris Bolhuis: fractures.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: joints and fractures and faults. if you have a fault that's, like, sliding slowly, 1 side slipping past the other slow enough that minerals are growing, you can generate these, long, acicular needle like structures in there, and you got fluids around so you have all sorts of elements that can accommodate. So the amphibole structure, I think just to kinda summarize, the amphibole asbestos group minerals are forming, they need to kinda be stretched out. They're usually formed in [00:23:30] faults or in joints, there's minerals precipitating. And, Chris, You and I collected some of these.
Chris Bolhuis: We did. We
Dr. Jesse Reimink: They
Chris Bolhuis: um, spectacular.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: they weren't quite asbestos, I would But they were they're long needle like
Chris Bolhuis: Are you talking about the actinolite that we collected?
We also did though, Jesse. Uh, we collected serpentinite as well. Was that
Dr. Jesse Reimink: true.
Chris Bolhuis: have asbestos in it, like the true
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I think some
Chris Bolhuis: of, like, the white asbestos.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I'm trying to remember what ours what that [00:24:00] 1 looks like that we found. I don't think it was quite, pure chrysotile like the asbestos group would be. But, you know, it definitely has that fibrous nature to it a little bit.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So question, Jesse, then.
this seems like a really niche Geologic setting. And I'm struck with the idea that how can there possibly be enough to mine if this is the niche setting where Forms and joints and fractures where you actually have, actively stretching this stuff out you would get along a [00:24:30] fault. It doesn't seem like you'd you'd be able to produce
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You can get, settings where there's a whole bunch of faults. Think of, like, a Horst and Graben structure or, like, a half graben. If you got a half graben falling down, block falling down, there's a big zone of fracture in there. and, you know, there's a lot of stretching, there's space being made because it's an extensional environment, you get this block dropping down and a whole bunch of different faults.
little there's 1 main 1, but there's a ton in between. think it, like, 1
Chris Bolhuis: half graben instead of just a graben?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: just an [00:25:00] extensional environment where you get, like, normal faults forming, uh, like, big tectonic normal faults, I guess. you brought up a stat about the sort of asbestos category of minerals. The amphibole group was a relatively small amount of the asbestos, like 10 percent or 20 percent.
And that's because think of this growth environment, amphibole is a really complicated mineral, has all sorts of different elements in it. It's way less homogeneous and therefore not as predictable as the white asbestos, the chrysotile ones. So if you're mining this stuff, you'd have some good asbestos, some [00:25:30] bad asbestos, like useful, not Useful. It's just really unpredictable because it's this complicated amphibole structure where you could fit all sorts of random stuff in
Chris Bolhuis: talk about that a little bit because this white asbestos, They're basically you and I refer to them as flavors. Right? There are 2 flavors of asbestos. You have the white asbestos, and then we lump the brown and blue asbestos into this Other category. Right?
90 percent of it is the white stuff, at least the stuff that was sold commercially was the the white asbestos. [00:26:00] And this stuff is what we find in the serpentines that you and I collected in it. It's serpentine is a beautiful mineral. Right? And then you have these what you called here, Jesse, and I wanna talk about this a little bit, serpentinized, ultramafic rocks. So can you explain that a second? Why would you have this white asbestos associated with an ultramafic rock that has been metamorphosed essentially.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Serpentine is a group of minerals. So there are a whole bunch of [00:26:30] categories of different minerals that form the serpentine group. And 1 of them is this mineral chrysotile, which is an asbestos.
And I think Chris know if you have a sample of chrysotile. Do you have a a sample of chrysotile in your
Chris Bolhuis: I actually do. I actually Do
Yes.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: probably are, like, required to keep it, behind glass or something because it's this asbestos.
Yeah. Right. But I think if you've
Chris Bolhuis: even know if I'm supposed to have it in my
Dr. Jesse Reimink: okay. Just just between you and me that you have the CRISSA deal. We won't tell anybody.
Chris Bolhuis: I do.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you've been to a mineral museum, [00:27:00] you probably have seen this. you'll often get this this sort of chunk. It's pale green and had long fibrous structure. It kinda looks like you could scratch it and it looks like fluffy, kind of. It's like a
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
It looks like it looks like gray
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, it's it does. It looks like Chris Polize's beard. And
Chris Bolhuis: Okay.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: and so, this is a serpentine group mineral. Chrysotilde is a serpentine group mineral. Its formula is magnesium, silica, oxygen, and water.
And so what rocks have a lot of magnesium and silica in [00:27:30] them and oxygen? Well, it's ultramafic rock. So olivine has those 3 parts, magnesium, silica, and oxygen, that's basically olivine, if you add water to it, you generate a serpentine group. So if you take olivine and alter it, you're gonna get Chrysotyl.
Alter it with water around.
Chris Bolhuis: And that, Jesse, becomes super important. Right?
The ability for this mineral to hold on to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes. Exactly. this is a really interesting 1. we [00:28:00] go just real quick into the weeds on this, Chris?
Because it's a it's a Give me 30 seconds. Give me 30 seconds. And
Chris Bolhuis: Uh, you can't do this
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Alright. Uh, alright.
3 minutes. Uh, no. I'll I'll I'll I'll do it. Okay. Really quickly.
Really quickly. I just mineral chrysotile is a sheet silicate. And, Chris, what
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Which is crazy.
That's
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you think of with a sheet silicate?
Chris Bolhuis: think of
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Micas.
Okay.
Chris Bolhuis: flogapite. You know? Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Because they flake off in sheets. Right? that's [00:28:30] sheet silicate. Okay.
Those are the obvious sheet silicates. Clays are also sheet silicates. This 1, an acicular, a long acicular fiber does not make sense to be a sheet silicate. Here's the thing about this. And this is kind of cool.
We have these sheets of silica tetrahedrons. So think of a little pyramid with 4 oxygens of silica and that's a silicon tetrahedron. You combine those together into a sheet, and that's a sheet silicate, but you need to put something between the sheets of silica.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
The sheets have to the in between the sheets, it needs a
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Exactly. [00:29:00] And and if you have, you know, biotite, you've got some aluminum, you've got a bunch of iron and magnesium that go in between those sheets, right.
And that makes biotite. This 1, you have a silicate tetrahedron sheet and then you have a layer of what's called brucite, the mineral brucite which is m g o h 2. So it's just hydrated magnesium.
Chris Bolhuis: Yep.
Not important. Not
Dr. Jesse Reimink: matter, but this doesn't fit right. So this stuff, it it makes a neutral bond, like, it makes a neutral molecule, but it doesn't fit structurally.
So what it does is that induces the [00:29:30] sheet to bend. So it kinda rolls up. think of taking a roll of aluminum foil and, like, putting another sheet of paper between it that bends the aluminum foil over. It kinda makes a roll. So it rolls this thing into a tube.
So it's a sheet silicate rolled into a tube. I just think that's so cool.
Chris Bolhuis: I agree. That's a cool story. And and there's another reason why this brucite mineral is so important.
And the reason is is because you alluded to it before that it it holds water, right, in the form of hydroxide. [00:30:00] anyway, that's not important. What is important about this is that It dehydrates. It loses its water when the temperature gets cranked up to about 550 degrees Celsius. And so if this stuff gets tanked into a subduction zone, it dehydrates. Literally, like, ringing the water out of the mineral, which then you know this from back when we talked about plate tectonics.
Go back to that episode or go back to that chapter in our Camp Geo book, is that when you add water to rock that is already [00:30:30] hot, You can induce partial melting. And this then is exceedingly important in generating magma at subduction
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So we've taken a sheet silica a sheet of silica tetrahedron, which we know from muscovite biotides is super stable, and we've wrapped up around bruiseite, which is, again, really stable as you just said, up to high temperatures. And this is what makes chrysotile such a valuable fibrous mineral is because it's stable dye temperatures. It's got all the values of silicate. It's nonreactive, div, etcetera, etcetera. And it's fibrous, and it [00:31:00] bends.
This is the difference between the amphibole ones from health purposes too, is you can bend this tube in a much different way than you could bend an amphibole that has a double chain silicate, which is a much more solid I think of double chains as, like, 2 pillars, steel I beams or something. Whereas if you have something rolled up, you can bend and flex that thing really quite easily. Right? And I don't know. That to me just intuitively makes a bit of sense.
Chris Bolhuis: Can I attempt an analogy here or an explanation of this of, like, what I think of okay? [00:31:30] So,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: producer? Yes. You may.
Chris Bolhuis: Watson says yes. Alright. So how about this? Have you ever worked with insulation before, Jesse?
The like, the pink or yellow stuff that you pick up. Right? Okay.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: uh, attic here to kinda keep it
Chris Bolhuis: You hate working with that stuff because then you what happens is that insulation is made up of These little tiny fiberglass hollow little needles. Right?
And they really resemble the Brown and blue asbestos. what they do then, if if you inhale these fibers [00:32:00] that are kind of like insulation. Right?
You when you work with insulation, those those little tubes, they jab and they get stuck in your skin. And then, you you get itchy and so you scratch it and you go wash your hands. And what most people do then is they they put warm water in their hands, which is worst thing to do because then your pores open up even more and the needles get even deeper in yet. It's just a mess. Right?
Well, the same thing happens with the blue and the brown asbestos This is you inhale them, and they they're so rigid and so slender, that [00:32:30] ratio of length to diameter, That they lodge in your lungs and then nothing happens to them. Right? They don't dissolve. They're very chemically stable. The white asbestos tends to be more curly, know, it's like kind of like curly hair, if you will.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Chris, I think I mean, this makes mineralogically, this makes a lot of sense. And I think we should just maybe highlight that the jury is maybe still out on the white asbestos specifically.
Like, although, you know, it it we [00:33:00] know that some of the other types of asbestos are for sure really dangerous in the mesothelioma and lung all the things you talked about before. there's still a a fair amount of, I would say, discussion about the white asbestos. I wouldn't say it's completely safe. It's, not documented to be completely safe, and and I think there's a bunch of medicals medical community kinda lumps them together often. so it it kinda depends on who you talk to about what asbestos, but the current, you know, state as we talked about, at my lab in Penn State, for instance, in your your room is [00:33:30] if you leave it behind the walls or in the tile, if you don't disturb it, it's not a hazard.
Like, you really need to be working with this stuff all the time to really pose, you know, a super major threat. So, that that's just that's just a a category. So, Chris, How about let's wrap up with some, like, ways that this stuff was used? We talked about insulation and tile and the reasons for that, but, Asbestos was used in a lot of other stuff too.
Chris Bolhuis: this is a list that we're gonna go through here that is, I think a shocking [00:34:00] list of uses, right, for asbestos.
Okay. So let's start off. 1 was toothpaste.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Wild.
Chris Bolhuis: That's that is wild, Jesse. It's wild.
But the fibrous nature of this mineral that we've been talking about all episode long, hey. That makes it a great abrasive.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah.
Yeah. For sure.
Chris Bolhuis: it was a great scouring agent in toothpaste.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: also, tablecloths, towels. if you want fire resistant clothing or fire resistant, cloth, you could use this. [00:34:30] Um, Stains could be removed from it.
You these fibers could be spun into a cloth. Right? So could make a cloth out of this and it's fire retardant and all these types of things. This goes back to ancient Greece. this has been used in cloth for a long time.
Chris Bolhuis: So, Jesse, when Chris falls asleep on the couch eating a bag of Doritos, which has been known to happen k.
And
Dr. Jesse Reimink: every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
Chris Bolhuis: So and he gets Dorito cheese on his shirt that is [00:35:00] made out of this asbestos Spun cloth. Right? All you gotta do is take
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You know what? This is a good gift.
I'm gonna we need to we're gonna get you a bib, a white asbestos bib for you to wear while you're eating Doritos in front of the TV at night.
Chris Bolhuis: Well, hey. You know what?
That's crazy, though. You just you take the cloth, throw it in the fire, Stain goes away, but the cloth is unaffected. And that's really this this goes back to ancient Greece. I mean, this was a Really clever use of asbestos,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Totally nuts. [00:35:30] Totally nuts. Yeah. Absolutely.
Another 1, Chris, cigarette filters. Again, they're fire resistant, so made it ideal for cigarette filters. Crazy. Wild to think about.
Chris Bolhuis: That's right. know what, Jesse? Let's go let's round this out. But they also used it a lot on film sets.
Because, well, a couple things. They it made for great fake snow, the white asbestos did. It's just
crazy. Hey.
Let's
Dr. Jesse Reimink: um, but you know what?
Chris Bolhuis: right. I oh, you made me feel bad
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I know. But it I was I
Chris Bolhuis: I'm just laughing at the craziness of it.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: it's [00:36:00] just we knew what was going on with it. You know?
Chris Bolhuis: That's right.
And then, also, Jesse, stunt people use this In their clothing where fire was a part of the stunt because of, obviously, the fire retardant nature
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. I mean, it's it's, uh, you could come up with many uses is for a fire retardant, flaky, fiber, right?
And and we did and we did. and now it's sitting in a lot of different places in tile as insulation. It's, sitting there not really doing any damage if you don't disturb it. But when you do disturb that, you need to tear it down.
need to [00:36:30] deal with
Chris Bolhuis: it is not sitting in Krispel Heise's lap.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: It's not. No. It's not. Definitely not.
Definitely not. Hey, Chris. This was a good 1. I, um, I liked this episode. this was a a really fun 1 to dive into and, uh, I don't know, an interesting Sort of things you should know, things you didn't know about asbestos.
Geology rules it all at the end of the day.
Chris Bolhuis: It does.
Geology is
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Jial just came. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Chris Bolhuis: is supreme.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's a good way that's a [00:37:00] good way to end Geology is supreme. I love that. Alright. Hey.
Well, that's a wrap today. You can follow us. Go to our website, planet geocast dot com. There you can subscribe. You can support us.
can find links to our old show notes and transcripts and things like that. can also head over to our Camp Geo mobile app. There we have our Camp Geo, the introduction physical geology conversational textbook with images embedded right in it. We also have some visual audio books for sale there as well, including Climate, Grand Canyon National Park and Yellowstone National Park [00:37:30] and some old podcast episodes kind of organized in a bit more of a structured manner into kind of themes there as well. So you can head over there.
Last thing, if you have any questions, we love getting listener questions. So send us an email planet geocast at g mail dot com. We're always working on Listener question episodes, you know, sometimes you give us questions that we can answer pretty quickly right away. Sometimes it takes a little bit more nuance, and sometimes we think, hey. This is great for an episode.
We've gotten a bunch of questions on this topic. We're gonna make an episode out of it. So keep sending us your questions.
Chris Bolhuis: Cheers.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Peace. [00:38:00]
