Distinguishing between amphibole asbestos fibers and elongate cleavage fragments of their non – asbestos analogues.

In 1986, a letter of correspondence to the New England Journal of Medicine (Germine, 1986) communicated that 2–4% tremolite asbestos was present in a crushed carbonate marble, marketed as a sand to be used in children’s sand boxes. Analysis of a specimen of this sand by the Environmental Sciences Laboratory for the US Consumer Products Safety Commission found that although tremolite was present in the amounts stated, it was not asbestos but rather common tremolite which, upon crushing, yielded generally blocky, prismatic cleavage fragments (see Langer & Nolan, 1987 and Figures 1,2,3).