The Need for Determining the Bioavailability of Quartz in Coal Mine Dust Samples

Abstract

Abstract A 3-year project focusing on the depth profiling of particles and giving their elemental characterizations at various depths has suggested that the reaction of lung tissues to coal mine dust exposures may be dependent upon coal rank-related surface coating of the particles, and ultimately upon specific quartz bioavailability. Previous research clearly indicates a coal rank relationship for the incidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis and a hypothesized inhibitory role of clays on quartz fibrogenicity. Specifically, epidemiological studies conducted in 1961 and 1963 showed a greater disease incidence for a given cumulative dust exposure among Pennsylvania coal miners who worked in higher rank coal seams. Workers in anthracite mines had a higher incidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis and progressive massive fibrosis than miners who worked in lower rank coal at equal cumulative exposures. This rank effect in Pennsylvania extended to all ranks of coal seams, that is, the lower the rank, the lower...