Alessandro F. Gualtieri, Mickey Gunter and Marisa Rozalen (contact: alessandro.gualtieri@unimore.it)

The presence of certain naturally occurring elements such as uranium, asbestos minerals, iron oxides which contain heavy elements, can make exposure to the soils and rocks that contain them hazardous. Due to natural causes (drainage, leaching) of anthropic factors (mining activity or activities related to landscape modification), such phases may be disseminated in the living environment, resulting in contamination of soil, water, air media. This process may take place directly in the site of natural occurrence or in the sites where such minerals are processed at industrial scale. This session welcomes contributions in the topic of identification, characterization, bio-chemistry and assessment of toxicity (both in vitro and in vivo) of raw and man-processed mineral phases such as asbestos minerals, mineral phases composing the airborne particulate, and many more, which represent an environmental and human health problem.

The Keynote speaker will be Giovanni B. Andreozzi (University of Rome "La Sapienza")