Determining acute health hazard ratings in the absence of applicable toxicological data.

Health, safety, and emergency planning professionals have a responsibility to identify acute hazards associated with chemicals and to find a way to transmit that information to chemical users, emergency responders, and others. Various organizations such as the Department of Energy are considering acute health hazard ratings as triggers that would mandate various activities. A paradigm shift away from a "lists" based approach to determining whether a chemical is sufficiently hazardous to require further analysis for emergency planning purposes is under way. Various toxicological data sources and approaches in use to develop an acute health hazard rating are discussed. Methods of extrapolating data from published and unpublished supporting documentation to develop an acute health hazard rating in the absence of toxicological data by animal species, chemical structure similarities, MSDS estimated values, and data mining are discussed. The process described analyzes applicable data and allows the analyst to determine reasonable health hazard rating numbers for chemicals without published hazard ratings and for mixtures of chemicals. The level and amount of resources available will determine which methods will be used in the process.

Mount st. Helens ash from the 18 may 1980 eruption: chemical, physical, mineralogical, and biological properties.

Samples of ash from the 18 May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens were collected from several locations in eastern Washington and Montana. The ash was subjected to a variety of analyses to determine its chemical, physical, mineralogical, and biological characteristics. Chemically, the ash samples were of dacitic composition. Particle size data showed bimodal distributions and differed considerably with location. However, all samples contained comparable amounts of particles less than 3.5 micrometers in diameter (respirable fraction). Mineralogically, the samples ranged from almost totally glassy to almost totally crystalline. Crystalline samples were dominated by plagioclase feldspar (andesine) and orthopyroxene (hypersthene), with smaller amounts of titanomagnetite and hornblende. All but one of the samples contained from less than 1 percent to 3 percent free crystalline silica (quartz, trydimite, or cristobalite) in both the bulk samples and 1 to 2 percent in the fractions smaller than 3.5 micrometers. The long-lived natural radionuclide content of the ash was comparable to that of crustal material; however, relatively large concentrations of short-lived radon daughters were present and polonium-210 content was inversely correlated with particle size. In vitro biological tests showed the ash to be nontoxic to alveolar macrophages, which are an important part of the lungs' natural clearance mechanism. On the basis of a substantial body of data that has shown a correlation between macrophage cytotoxicity and fibrogenicity of minerals, the ash is not predicted to be highly fibrogenic.

Moon: possible nature of the body that produced the imbrian basin, from the composition of apollo 14 samples.

Soils from the Apollo 14 site contain nearly three times as much meteoritic material as soils from the Apollo 11, Apollo 12, and Luna 16 sites. Part of this material consists of the ubiquitous micrometeorite component, of primitive (carbonaceous-chondrite-like) composition. The remainder, seen most conspicuously in coarse glass and norite fragments, has a decidedly fractionated composition, with volatile elements less than one-tenth as abundant as siderophiles. This material seems to be debris of the Cyprus-sized planetesimal that produced the Imbrian basin. Compositionally this planetesimal has no exact counterpart among known meteorite classes, though group IVA irons come close. It also resembles the initial composition of the earth as postulated by the two-component model. Apparently the Imbrian planetesimal was an Earth satellite swept up by the moon during tidal recession or capture, or an asteroid deflected by Mars into terrestrial space.

Glazed lunar rocks: origin by impact.

The glassy coating of lunar rock 12017 is enriched in 15 trace elements relative to the crystalline interior. It apparently consists chiefly of shock-melted rock, somewhat richer in rare earth elements and alkali metals than rock 12017 itself. The glass has been contaminated by about 0.5 percent carbonaceous-chondrite-like material or, alternatively, by a mixture of 0.06 to 0.3 percent fractionated meteoritic material and approximately 10 to 15 percent local soil. The glazing seems to represent molten material splashed from a nearby meteorite impact and not in situ melting by a sudden increase in solar luminosity.

Trace elements and radioactivity in lunar rocks: implications for meteorite infall, solar-wind flux, and formation conditions of moon.

Lunar soil and type C breccias are enriched 3-to 100-fold in Ir, Au, Zn, Cd, Ag, Br, Bi, and Tl, relative to type A, B rocks. Smaller enrichments were found for Co, Cu, Ga, Pd, Rb, and Cs. The solar wind at present intensity can account for only 3 percent of this enrichment; an upper limit to the average proton flux during the last 4.5 x 109 years thus is 8 x 10(9) cm(-2) yr(-1). The remaining enrichment seems to be due to a 1.5 to 2 percent admixture of carbonaceous-chondritelike material, corresponding to an average influx rate of meteoritic and cometary matter of 2.9 x 10(-9) g cm(-2) yr(-1) at Tranquility Base. This is about one-quarter the terrestrial rate. Type A, B rocks are depleted 10-to 100-fold in Ag, Au, Zn, Cd, In, Tl, and Bi, relative to terrestrial basalts. This suggests loss by high-temperature volatilization, before or after accretion of the moon. Positron activities due mainly to (22)Na and (26)Al range from 90 to 220 beta(+) min(-1) kg(-1) in five small rocks or fragments (9 to 29 g). The higher activities presumably indicate surface locations. Th and U contents generally agree with those found by the preliminary examination team.