Crystal faces and cleavage planes in quartz as templates in biological processes

Abstract

Some species of minerals, when comminuted and aerosolized in the form of respirable-size particulate dusts, are recognized as capable of producing disease in man after their inhalation. Comprehensive listings of such agents are in the current literature (e.g. in Aponte, 1970; Langer & Mackler, 1972; Ehrenreich et al. 1973a, b) and many of these and their effects are well known and receive much attention. Asbestos fibres of all varieties, ampbibole and quartz contaminated talcum powders (see Rohl et al. 1976), fibrous amphiboles and their cleavage fragments which contaminate the ambient environment (e.g., the contamination of Lake Superior with cummingtonite-grunerite, as discussed in Bowes, Langer & Rohl, 1977), have been the subject of recent intensive investigations mostly due to their protential impact to large segments of the general population.