Dangerous dust: Erionite - an asbestos-like mineral causing a cancer epidemic in Turkey - is found in at least 13 states

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:52:52 -0500

A gravel road north of North Killdeer Mountain, one of the sites where erionite was found in road gravel in 2006. Ed Murphy, North Dakota State Geologist

An epidemic of mesothelioma is responsible for half the deaths in some villages in the Cappadocia region of Turkey, where villagers have built homes of, and in, the erionite-bearing stone. Michele Carbone, University of Hawaii Cancer Center

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.

Erionite on EARTH Magazine

Dangerous dust: Erionite - an asbestos-like mineral causing a cancer epidemic in Turkey - is found in at least 13 states