• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.563-575
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• 2024

In Korea, talc, vermiculite, sepiolite, and serpentine were designated as minerals likely to contain asbestos (MLCA) according to the Ministry of Environment (Asbestos Safety Management Act). The asbestos content in commercial products made of MLCA must not exceed 0.1 %. In this study, mineralogical analyses using PLM, XRD, and TEM-EDS were used to characterize the presence, content, and morphological characteristics of asbestos in MLCA-containing commercial products. A total of 28 samples were analyzed, including 18 cosmetics containing talc, 5 fertilizers containing vermiculite, 2 pet sanitary products containing sepiolite, and 3 accessories containing serpentine. All samples were heated at 450 ℃ for 6 hours to remove organic matter prior to XRD and PLM analyses according to the Ministry of Environment guidelines. Additionally, the presence and morphology of elongated mineral particles (EMPs) were investigated using TEM-EDS analysis according to the recently revised asbestos analysis method (FDA-2020-N-0025) by the US FDA. The analyses showed that no asbestos was detected in both talc-containing cosmetics and sepiolite-containing products, but actinolite asbestos was found (<0.25 %) in vermiculite-containing fertilizers and chrysotile was found (<0.25 %) in decorative serpentine stones. In TEM-EDS analysis, multiple columnar/fibrous particles measuring 0.5 ㎛ or more in length were observed in talc-containing products, and short chrysotile fibers were observed in bracelets containing serpentine. Therefore, these results indicated that the MLCA-containing products that come into direct contact with the human body would require management through precise inspection and continuous monitoring considering EMPs of 5 ㎛ or less. Furthermore, TEM-EDS for asbestos analysis indicated that it could overcome the detection limits of XRD and PLM analyses for short or thin asbestos fibers, thereby improving the precision and accuracy of asbestos analysis.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.17-33
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• 2016

Samples from newly exposed outcrop of sedimentary layers forming Jeongdongjin coastal terrace in Gangreung area are collected and analyzed to find the sedimentary environment. The site are located at the gentle hillslope of the terrace surface area. The height of the outcrop is about 8m and the altitude of it's highest part is 68~73m MSL. The lowest part of this out crop is the partly consolidated sand layer with gravel veneer within it. It is found that this part is not in-situ weathered sand stone through the OSL method. This sand layer is overlain by the gravel layer with sand matrix. The shapes of the gravels from this part are mainly 'platy', 'elongated', and 'bladed' by the index of Sneed and Folk(1958). In addition, mean roundness is not so high. It is sceptical to regard this part as marine sediments which are continuously exposed to erosional processes. The boundary between the lowest sand layer and gravel layer showing the abrupt change in forming material without any mixture or transitional zone, so gravels are seemed to deposited after some degree of consolidation of the lowest sand layer. In addition, the hight of the boundary between layers are changed by the place, so the surface of the partly consolidated sand layer is not flat and has irregularity on topography when it buried by gravels. Main part of this out crop is the poorly sorted coarse gravel(22.4mm) with sand matrix($1.36{\phi}$) layer with at least 2m thick covering the relatively fine gravels discussed above. Over 20% of particles have 'very platy', 'very elongated' and 'very bladed' shape and only less than 5% of particles have 'compact' shape, So this particles are also very hard to be regard as marine gravels which are abraded by marine processes. It can be concluded that this gravel layer formed by fluvial processes rather than coastal processes base on the form of the clast and sedimentary structure. The gravel layer is covered by fine($3{\sim}4{\phi}$) material layers of psudo-gleization which showing inter-bedding of red and white layers. Chemical composition of matrix and other fine materials should be analyzed in further studies. It is attempted to fine the burial ages of the sediment using OSL method, but failed by the saturation. So it can be assumed that these sediments have be buried over 120ka.