GeoPiemonte NOA: a geological map of naturally occurring asbestos in Piemonte region (NW Italy)

<p>The &#8220;Geological map of Naturally Occurring Asbestos of Piemonte region&#8221; at 1:250,000 scale aims at reviewing the distribution of NOA-bearing rocks and the individual occurrences of NOA minerals of Piemonte at the regional scale.&#160;</p><p>A geo-lithological basemap was produced ad hoc through a reasoned simplification of the basic Geological Map of Piemonte and its geo-database (GeoPiemonteMap, Piana et al., 2017; also available as a WebGIS service at https://webgis.arpa.piemonte.it/Geoviewer2D/index.html?config=other-configs/geologia250k_config.json). Particular emphasis was given to the potentially NOA-bearing rocks, i.e., meta-ophiolites and sedimentary successions containing meta-ophiolite clasts. The map reports hundreds of punctual occurrences of NOA minerals, as well as the main former asbestos mining sites. The NOA occurrences dataset derives from a thorough revision of the regional geological literature, integrated with authors' original data acquired during several years of geological and geo-environmental surveys.</p><p>The map is supported by a geo-database, compliant with the geo-datsabase of basic Geological Map of Piemonte. Each mapped NOA occurrence corresponds to an item of the geo-database, containing the following information: NOA mineral(s) species, locality and coordinates, occurrence type (i.e., in vein/in the rock matrix/detrital), host rock lithology, meso- and micro-scale description (e.g., vein thickness, associated minerals, etc.), NOA mineral identification method (e.g, optical microscopy, microRaman spectroscopy, XRD, etc...), bibliographic reference, and sample availability (i.e., presence of samples in university or museum collections).</p><p>References:<br>Piana et al. (2017), Journal of Maps 13: 395-405, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2017.1316218</p>